Inle Lake
I had a fantastic time at Inle Lake. Every time I get to a new location in Myanmar, I expect more of the same: beautiful temples, lush landscapes, and above all always smiling and extremely friendly people. And all of these elements are present at each location, but somehow Myanmar always manages to top it and surprise me with yet another wonderful and unique experience.
Inle Lake is a lake in Eastern Myanmar that tourists go to to observe the fishermen and visit villages around the lake. Like so many other tourists, I decided to take a boat tour on the lake together with a Chinese woman and a Spanish guy, Rodolfo. However, I made one seemingly thoughtless decision that ended up being key to making the experience so special: I decided that I wanted to see sunrise on a rainy day. Of course, the sunrise was hidden by the clouds, but it also meant that we started our tour at 5am instead of 8am like everybody else (my two tour partners were not to happy about that). So we had every single place on the tour to ourselves, because our boat was ahead of everyone else.
First, we drove to the 5 day market. It’s a market that takes place every day, but rotates between five different villages around the lake. That day, the market was in Thaung Tho which is located at the southern/opposite end of the lake. Driving to this market was a delight. We had to cross many water villages along the lake and I could see people washing their clothes in the lake, and children as small as 6-7 years old driving by themselves in their boat to school. Of course I could also see the fishermen on the lake. Those fishermen are famous because they use a technique of leg rowing (while fishing), where they wrap one leg around the paddle to drive the blade through the water imitating a snake-like motion. The whole process is really impressive to watch. They balance themselves on one end of the boat, manipulate the net with their hands while rowing the boat. They have an amazing sense of balance while performing their dance-like motions.
When we finally arrived at the market, I was filled with joy. I expected a market full of souvenir stalls, but it turns out the souvenir section had not opened yet and the market from 6am till 9am was actually for locals. It could not have been more authentic! Hundreds of villagers had made the trip to the market arriving with boats and carts pulled by cows. Many of them came from villages in the mountains and were wearing their tribal clothes. Of course, many came with merchandise to sell as well. The one image I will never forget are the row (maybe 10?) pigs arriving on a small canoe. They had all been neatly aligned to exactly fit on the boat. A masterpiece! I spent almost two hours wandering through the sections, interacting with locals, and buying various food items. I did not actually want any of these items, but I was so delighted by what I saw that I felt I should support their business. One section I particularly enjoyed was the movie poster section. It was so wonderful seeing tribal people casually browsing through what seemed to be the Myanmar equivalent of Bollywood movie posters.
I forgot to mention one crucial detail about the market. It had rained the night before and the sun had not been out long enough to dry the earth. So the whole place was basically a mud bath. The locals were equipped with heavy-duty rain-boots, but I was in my flip-flops. At every step, my shoes got stuck to the ground. So pretty early on, I decided I would be better off barefoot. In the end, I had mud up to my knees. I didn’t mind walking in the mud at all, but it was also a great way to interact with locals. The locals thought it was hilarious to see this white girl barefoot and covered with mud. Many started giggling when they saw me coming, some even wanted to sell me boots, and others called over their friends to have a look at the white girl with mud up to her knees. It was really delightful, because I entertained them as much as they entertained me, but for different reasons.
I left at the same time as other local people started leaving. Coincidentally, this was also when the first tourist boats were arriving.
Next, our boat driver wanted to bring us to some workshop. While this sounds like a good idea, I was warned beforehand that it is basically a tourist trap and extremely staged with the only goal to make you buy something. So we just decided to go to one of them, the cigar workshop. It was basically three women rolling cigars in a room full of souvenirs. But I must say, I was quite impressed by the speed at which they rolled those cigars. It only took a couple of seconds for each one. Of course, they also offered us to try them. I didn’t end up buying anything, but it was actually interesting for being a tourist trap.
Next, we went to Phaung Daw Oo Paya. It’s one of the holiest religious sites in the Shan state. The highlight here are five ancient buddha images that have been transformed into amorphous blobs by the volume of gold leaf applied by male devotees. Yes, like for the golden rock, only men are allowed to get close to these Buddha images and apply gold leaves to them. In this case, the Buddha images really aren’t recognizable anymore.
After that, we went to Inthein. Inthein is a village known the Shwe Inn Thein Paya. It’s a complex with 1054 zedis that were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. The zedis are very densely packed together which makes the complex very impressive in a way. It’s like a maze of pagodas. Many also have little bells attached to their tip that make music in the wind.
In the afternoon, we stopped at the floating gardens. These are vegetable gardens (tomatoes, beans, cucumbers etc) that people have planted on the water. The vegetable grow on long wooden trellises supported on floating mats of vegetation. The farmers navigate the garden in their canoes to attend to their crops. The setup is quite ingenious and it was beautiful to observe the farmers working from their little canoes.
Our last stop was the jumping cat monastery. It’s a monastery on the water that is famous for having cats jump through hoops between scripture recitals. However, as our boat driver informed us, it turns out that the cats haven’t jumped in two years. Now they just lie in the sun. As for the monks, I have no idea where they were, but they weren’t in the monastery when we visited.
On my last day at Inle lake, I decided to do a trek in the nearby mountains. The people in the guesthouse assured me that the path was easy to find, but the map that they gave me was very ambiguous, with many parts of the trek leading though the fields of farmers. I ended up walking for 2.5 hours and then turning around because I was just too unsure about which path to take. The segment that I did walk though was absolutely stunning. I crossed several villages that see extremely few tourists. So I had kids jumping all around me screaming “Hello” and adults stopped whatever they were doing to watch me walk by with a big smile on their faces. Yet another perfect day!
I finished my time at Inle Lake with a visit to Inle Lake’s Pancake kingdom that smartly advertized their business with signs saying “R u tired of rice?”. Not that I was tired of rice, but who would say no to a banana, chocolate pancake with a green apple lassi. A delight!
As I was leaving the guesthouse, the girls who worked at the the hotel offered me a paper lantern as a goodbye gift. I am really in awe of the infinite kindness of Burmese!
See more photos here.
Practical information: I can highly recommend the place that I stayed at at Inle Lake, called Aquarius. They have rooms from $12 to $40 per night. The rooms come with breakfast (the best I have had on my trip so far) and all rooms look out onto the interior garden. In addition, whenever you come back in the afternoon from your day activities, the girls in the guesthouse offer you a fruit salad and tea in the garden. And apparently, you also get a goodbye present in this guesthouse….
