Inle Lake

We were really looking forward to getting away from smoky, smoggy Yangon but once in the air we found out that the whole country was smoky. The reason, apparently, is that they burn everything - garbage, left over plant material after the harvest, everything!  

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Below is a shot from the airplane as we're leaving Yangon early in the morning. Smoggy.

And below is a shot from the bus after we've arrived at the Heho airport near Inle Lake. Smoky!

To get to Inle Lake we take a bus to Nyaung Shwe (no idea how to pronounce it) with a stop along the way to visit, what will become, the first of many, many Buddhist temples.

Here's our group. The gal in the red skirt with black hair is our tour guide, Yi Mon.  Her first name is Yi and it's pronounced more like Zhi  a la Dr. Zhivago.

Big Buddha.  We will see thousands more before this trip is over.  They reeeaaaalllllly love Buddha here.

People from all over the world have paid money to put a little Buddha doll inside the wall.  Don't know what is costs...wasn't interested in doing it.

A construction project underway....a new temple maybe.

We finally get to the town where we'll catch the boats to take us to our resort but first a visit to a tomato factory. Growing tomatoes is a big industry here. More on that later.

To get around this town we all take Trishaws - kind of like a rickshaw I guess. That's our friend Ian below.

And that's our friend Marina from Moscow.  Look at the bulge in the bike driver's cheek. He's chewing betel nut.  

I took this shot of one of the trishaws...it's in tough shape... held together with a piece of string.

A common site in Myanmar - people washing their clothes and their bodies in the river.

Two local people in traditional clothing.

The whole group at lunch the first day. On the right side is Ian, Inge, Terri, me, Konstantin and Marina.  On the left is Yi Mon, David, Yvonne, Daphne and John - the four on Yi Mon's side are brits travelling together.  There were just 10 of us for this leg of the trip. Yi Mon said there would normally be more people but, as noted earlier, there had been many cancellations due to the Rohingya situation,

The boats below are how everyone gets around on Inle Lake. They have a loud motor mounted wide open in rear of the boat. Noisy as hell. Some of the boats do have a cover over the motor but not many.

A picture of the boat motor. The driver sits on the little shelf behind the motor and steers the boat from there. The boat does have a small muffler but it's essentially useless The boats are very noisy.

And the business end...the propeller shaft is also used to steer the boat. There must be some sort of a differential joint that allows the shaft to rotate but also move from side to side and up and down.  I should have had a better look I guess.

Some of our group getting in the boat for our trip to the resort where we'll stay for three nights.

Below is a small video of our trip to the Sanctum Inle Resort.

The map below shows the location of our resort on Inle Lake

Nearing the resort.

Couldn't complain about the room.

A nice infinity edge pool - unheated though.

After we checked in we were on our own until dinner so we went on a walk-about.  The local people are not living in the same luxury as us that's for sure.

A sugar cane field. The plants were at least 10 feet high - maybe more. Soon they'll harvest the cane and then burn what remains. More smoke.

Day 2

Our second day on Inle Lake is a full one so we set out early. A shot of our boat driver. Note the goop on his face.  It's a white paste an a lot of people, men and women, young and old smear this shit on their face. Read about it here.

Also note our boat motor is covered today so not quite as noisy.

The rest of our group. It's chilly this early in the day, people are wearing sweaters.

What's shown below is a floating garden and a farmer's "day house". These gardens actually float on top of the water and and are held in place by the stakes that you can see in the picture.  Without the stakes they would likely be blown away by the wind. We were told the house is just used by he farmer during the day as he works the garden and at night he (or she..or they probably) return to their home in town.  I have a hunch that some of them live here full time though..no electricity, no plumbing, no internet,   nada! Tomatoes are the main crop grown in these gardens.

Read more about it here.

Tomato vines.

Another shot showing it a little better.

These are some houses in town. It seems that some of them they have electricity.  Plumbing though...???

It's a really great way to get around the lake. These boats have comfortable chairs and they provided everyone with a blanket.  Yi Mon is not used to the cold. She wouldn't like it in Canada in winter.

An artsy-fartsy shot of the sun coming up over the hills.  All the buildings are another resort.

A shot of a guy harvesting some sort of plant from the lake..seaweed maybe?

I think we were told it's used to build the floating gardens. The gardens are also added to with the remains of the crop each growing cycle..kind of like a mulch.. they just chop it up and add it to the garden. Soon it turns into soil.

I read some where that the lake is 40% covered by these floating gardens and no more are allowed.

A village built on stilts in the lake. We're headed to a marketplace there.

A bunch of shots from the marketplace...it's not a Safeway that's fer sure

There's just about everything you can imagine for sale here.  I even bought myself a man's dress here. Many of men here wear a longyi..a man's dress..like the guy in the photo below. Ladies do too of course.

Check out all the boats. Hundred of them. Ours is in there somewhere.

After the marketplace we're heading for some sort of a religious site.  

These guys are harvesting soil from the river.  again, it's to be used in the floating gardens.  These people work hard to make a living.

And guys and gals washing clothes. We saw this everywhere.

A guy washing his ox.  A clean ox is a happy ox.

A tranquil section of the river.

The gal below was making some sort of flat bread.  It was cooked in the hot sand. Pretty tasty. Poor Yi Mon is still cold.

We finally made it to the Phuang Daw Oo Pagoda

???

The exit from the pagoda was a half mile long tourist trap with all kinds of junk.  

After the pagoda we go to another town where we got a cooking lesson and we also get fed.

Everyone was impressed with the cooking. I honestly don't recall what we ate. I recall they had local Myanmar beer which is pretty good.

In the same town we went to a little factory where they made the cloth that the ladies wear. It seems they are using the same looms that were used hundreds of years ago. they are not weaving  cotton or wool either - it's the fibre from the lotus plants that grow all over the lake.

The video below shows how they get the fibre from the lotus plant.

Another store in this village made special paper as shown below...all made right in front of you by local ladies. I bought one very similar to the one shown below for about $2.00

And the long necked ladies were there too. These are the Kayan people. Read about them here.

On the way back to the resort we went by these homes.

I think this guy has an outdoor toilet in the tin shed. And satellite TV.

This guy might even have an indoor toilet.

Day 3

On our third day Terri and I were on our own with a different guide - A Mon. That was her name A Mon. Today we had a choice of activities and the eight others picked one different from ours.  We chose to visit a local village, to visit a sugar cane processing facility, and then visit another village where they process a variety of things into food and snacks.

So the first part was just cruising around a nearby village in a paddle boat - not the long motor boat that we've been using that last couple days. This way we wouldn't be disturbing anyone.

I'm sure the little hut right in the middle of the photo is he outdoor toilet...see the blue pipe running out of the hut and into the ground.  I think they have some sort of septic field going on.

And ducks...everyone needs ducks!

And even in Myanmar some people like to paint their houses brightly. Even the outhouse is a nice colour.

A local lady paddling to the nearby 7-Eleven

The local grade school.

And a house that's not on the water.  It's still built on stilts though. And it looks like they have a brick shithouse in the back yard

We visited a place where they turn sugar cane into brown sugar.

Look at the height of the sugar cane below. Soon it'll be burned up.

The finished product - slabs of brown sugar.

After we went right across the lake - about 10 km - to another village where the main industry is turning the local crops into food and snacky things.

This guy is whacking the water with a huge pole to scare fish into a net.  See video below.

And his guy is paddling his boat with his foot. See video below.

And this guy is either putting down or pulling up traps.  Don't recall what he was trying to catch.  Crayfish maybe??

Now this is a different type of propulsion system. The drive shaft protrudes right out of the motor and into the lake.  To steer the boat the entire motor is raised and moved from side to side and up and down.  Very ingenious.

So we're at the snack village.  Sunflowers below drying in the sun.

Some sort of pancake thing drying in the sun..see video

Some sort of noodle or tofu...???

Our guide  A Mon. She was very stylish.

These were pieces of dried tofu. Very tasty too.

So this is the video I referred to above.  It's four small vids stitched together.

They're burning something up there.  Smoke.

Approaching our resort for the last time.

Finally some shots of the pool area at our resort. It really was a first class place. All the employees were so professional and friendly. It is unlikely we'll ever return to Inle Lake again but if we do we would certainly stay here again.

That's it for Inle Lake...tomorrow we fly to Mandalay.