I met Lance in the town of Nyaungshwe. It was a happy reunion we haven’t been apart that long for ages !! After a glorious bath, some food and a good sleep I was ready to get back to the business of exploring. Lance’s foot was a bit better, after a few days of rest, so we were ready to go.
Nyaungshwe is the town to stay whilst visiting the Inle Lake area. Inle Lake is one of the largest lakes in Myanmar (but not actually that big about 100 square kms-) The town its self pretty small consisting of one main road with numerous side streets, a few stupas, and a big food antique, gold and trinket market.
Life on the lake is what we had come to see, and it is a unique one, stilted villages, fisherman with a unique rowing style, glittering gold temples and a fair share of ruined ones.
The river as always a source for everything: drinking, washing, bathing, daily life in the town.
We didn’t waste much time. First order of business was to get ourselves a boat and a skipper.
Our captn’ took us down the river channel to the shimmering expanse of Inle lake. Almost immediately we could see the Iconic fishermen known for practicing their distinctive rowing style which involves standing at the stern on one leg and wrapping the other leg around the oar. This unique style evolved out of necessity, as the lake is covered by reeds and floating plants, making it difficult to see above them while sitting. Standing provides the fishermen with a view beyond the reeds. These guys are the real deal.
The entrepreneurs – A few men had dressed up in traditional clothes and for a small tip would show you a close up of their incredible fishing techniques. So worth seeing everything in detail. We gave him a nice tip.
Our skipper took us next to Indein. Indein is one of the villages that host the Inle “5 day market”, the market that is held in a five day rotating cycle in five villages around the lake. The Pa-Oh people who live in the surrounding hills sell their wares here. The village is reached by boat through the Inn Thein creek, a long narrow canal. The ride from Inle Lake can be made in the rainy season and winter only, in the summer season the water level is too low.
It seemed like we walked a mile through this covered market I resisted buying the gorgeous, ornate, gold, embroidered Buddhist iconography why???? I now so regret not buying it. I did however buy this string of glowing, garnets gorgeous.
Colourful tribes people selling and buying wares and do you see this little child peaking from behind a pagoda – what a cutie
The village is best known for its many ancient pagodas in many shapes and sizes and in various states of preservation. While some have been restored, others are in their original crumbling state. On our wanderings we met up with little cutie’s mama and her collecting herbs.
We spent a good few hours wandering through the tall grasses discovering stupa after stupa some ransacked. Sadly buddhas heads crudely decapitated for sale outside of the country – illegal of course. but probably now gracing some European manor house. Poor Myanmar pillaged beyond belief.
Shwe Indein Pagoda is a glittering sight hard to look at in the sun and very hot on the feet no shoes allowed. Ouch!!
Stilted villages are common on the lake. The waterways busy with traffic. They looked so rustic and then on close examination we could see everyone had electricity, fridges and satellite dishes. A very comfy home in perfect surroundings. The quiet reflections on the water were so beautiful, I couldn’t stop taking photos.
We were impressed with the floating vegetable gardens. Around a quarter of the lake is covered with these island gardens. Tomatoes are the most prominent crop. They’re so successful they make up around 90 percent of the gardens’ yields. Depending on the season, farmers can also harvest beans, cucumbers, flowers, and gourds.
Creating these gardens is no easy task. Farmers must gather clumps of water hyacinth and seagrass and secure them in place with large bamboo poles, which they then stake into the lake’s muddy bottom. They then heap even more layers of seagrass and silt atop the mounds before planting seeds.
We visited floating Nga Hpe Kyaung or jumping cat monastery. The monastery is famous for its kitties, that were trained by the monks to jump through small hoops. It was rather disappointing!! The cat jumping wasn’t happening!! The cats far too fat and lazy. Same with the monks who we didn’t see but heard snoring very loudly behind an ornate screens – hehe we had a good laugh.
However the huge wooden meditation hall with statues in the Shan, Tibetan, Bagan and Inwa (Ava) styles were fantastic. Stunning Buddhas all in a lovely old and creaky wooden temple – we’ll take that 🙂
Hpaung Daw U Pagoda a very important Buddist site. The pagoda houses five small golden images of Buddha, which have been covered in gold leaf to the point that their original forms cannot be seen. Old photographs hanging on the monastery walls showed us the Buddhas in their original state. Gold has had to be removed on occasion to reduce the Buddhas mass. Only men are permitted to place gold leaf on the images. Weird for me young boys as young as 3 years old playing around and allowed in the sacred space close to these statues but religious old women only permitted way out in the perimeter of the shrine. Jeeze gender discrimination hard to handle for this broad xxx
Lance wanted to try out his foot and do a day hike. He doesn’t mess about! This one was about 24kms. We spent the day with Monjo. What a joyous day it was we learned so much about Myanmar from him. We started at 7:30am strolling through the surrounding villages into the foot of the mountains. Right from the start Monjo shared an array of stories about the local area and himself, with commentary on the people, the produce and the country itself. We visited a cave containing a monastery. We continued up the mountains. It was a hot day so we stopped regularly for a rest, some water and of course a chat about an array of subjects, Myanmar politics and its history a leading topic.
Tobacco fields in bloom such a beautiful scent.
Tobacco drying in the sheds (also a wonderful scent) and folks we met on the way.
After such a “lovely” walk up a BIG hill we finally arrived at our lunch stop. I love that we stop at someones house. They get paid, by the guide to feed us. We had a simple rice dish and a huge platter of fruit and veggies – the avocados here are the best we have ever eaten. And our new addiction dragon fruit.
Another pair from Belgium were lunching here. We enjoyed a pleasant chat so fun to cross paths with folks from different countries.
Thank you host family. Glad we could stop and enjoy your hospitality.
Next we stumbled on this monastry -we were told all of the children had been sent there by extremely poor families. The children here have a better life food and an education. So many doggies everywhere.
Next to the monastic buidings was the cave shrine dark and humid filled with buddahs and rather creepy skeleton drawings.
First cooking class ever, and what a fab place to do it as we had never cooked Burmese food before. Zu zu was amazing, first stop was the food market. We learned so much about the culture of cooking and the interesting ingredients, most of which we have never seen tasted or heard of before. Zu zu also showed us all the beauty products the thanaka, she uses everyday, soap and shampoo products made from plants that are on sale in the markets. Most of the items were wrapped in banana leaves – no plastic packaging to recycle here. Life is so much more sustainable in this country.
We made a huge array of food. Lots of fried lentil/bean flour snacks, lentil ginger soup, pumpkin curry and a sweet dessert. We ate tonnes and had so much fun making all the dishes.
Our beautiful, vivacious, Israeli friends. We all had so much to say to each other! After our day of cooking we all went on to sit for a few more hours over tea. We had such a lovely afternoon with you. We continue to follow your stories through social media. Hope we meet again in person one day.
The main street has lots of shops, several restaurants, a few stupas, and a fab food antique, trinket market. On our last few days now before heading back to Tiawan and on to Canada. Surprisingly there is more room in my back pack I dumped some more clothes hehe and now can go and buy some of the beautiful handwoven and hand embroided balnkets famous in this area. There are literally NO machines to make cloth only looms. And you cant leave Myanmar with out a bit of Burmese jade and silver and of course a ruby !! adore this ring 🙂
Many of the stalls in the market were laden with dusty artifacts, supposedly antique treasures from a bygone age. There were fabulous opium weights, carved pieces of bone, beautiful pottery bowls and gruesome tatoo sticks complete with ink. We were searching for Pumtek or Pue beads. They are made from Opalized Palmwood: Pumtek meaning “buried thunderbolt” are important heirloom beads among the Chin, who live in the Chin Hills of western Myanmar. They are ancient beads, being passed for hundreds of years through families.
One particular little shop caught our eye. The lady old, sweet and smiley she invited us in to sit and gave us tea – how kind. Somehow with her fabulous sales skills she managed to drop into the conversation that she had some rare beads at her house. She didn’t leave them in the shop as they were to valuable. Would we like to see them? – yes we said getting excited – she called her son who arrived 15 mins later on a motorbike with a cloth bag. She poured out the contents on to this tray and we were stunned looking at some of the rarest shapes and crazy beautiful beads we had seen on the internet.Wow this was a fortune we should buy them. Does this sweet old dear know what she has? We hummed and haaed finally left. Lance did some research – good job luckily the time was right and Lance emailed an expert on these beads who emailed us back pretty quickly saying they were all fakes!! Phew we so nearly took a chance and bought them. We saw the old lady again the next day she kinda winked at us and I think she made the price so high she knew we would leave – I don’t think she wanted to scam us after our lovely visit hehe – well that s what I want to believe anyway – Lance bought me these new fossilized wood beads – $10 a great bargain.
It is always wise to only by things if you love them. Hehe. There are no guarantees here!!
1 thought on “Inle Lake”
Wow…..you guys are awesome. I love this website/blog, and want to know more about it when we visit again. I just breezed through your Myanmar trip, but will get back to it and your other trips soon.
David Hale