Inle Lake in the Shan Highlands of Myanmar

Fisherman on Inle Lake

Inle Lake is a shallow lake, greatest depth of 9 feet, in the bottom of a valley that is 3000 feet high between 2 low and beautiful mountain ranges.  Islands of water hyacinths, in full bloom, and marsh grasses float on the surface of the lake, while the shores are marshy and a haven for birds and wildlife.  This is home to dozens of villages, some on stilts over the shallow water and some on the land on the verges of the lake.  Fishing, tourism, and markets form the basis of the economy, with virtually all commercial and social activity occurring via long, narrow, but very stable, boats.

Inle Lake village home

This is a half hour flight from Mandalay, whose large new international airport is about an hour out of town and quite empty, with only a couple of international flights and lots of domestic flights on Myanmar's overabundance of airlines.  Our plane was a sturdy, twin engine prop, a bit dated, but with  very pleasant service from the 3 flight attendants.  We landed with 3 bounces and teetered on to the terminal, set amidst rich green rice fields and purply mountains.

On our way to Inle Lake, we stopped by a paper factory where Shan tribesmen make paper by hand, most sheets decorated with deep purple or hot pink bougainvillea blossoms.  Among many products, they make umbrellas with this paper, sealed with oil that doesn't diminish the beauty of the paper.  We watched a craftsman make the bamboo umbrella sticks, including the latches that lift the umbrella.  He used very sharp knives, moving extremely quickly, so we noticed with alarm that he was missing a finger, which bothered us and not him.

Farming on the Lake

Fishing here is rather unusual.  First, the fishermen row with one foot wrapped around an oar, holding the other end in one hand.  They stand on the tip end of the boat, with incredible balance, and swing their leg wide with a circular motion of the hip.  Doing this enables them to keep one hand free and to have a better view of the surface of the lake, where they look for bubbles that signal fish.  When they find a fish, they drop a conical bamboo frame with a net inside.  Once the frame hits the shallow bottom, hopefully over the fish, they take a bamboo fork and scare the fish into the folds of the net, at which point they pull sharply up on the net and trap the fish.  Sometimes they take the oar and beat on the water to get the fish to go where they want.  The fisherman are remarkably agile, walking along the sides of these perfectly-balanced, canoe-shaped boats, quietly, slowly and carefully.

Agriculture is also a water business.  Boatsmen and women go out in the same boats as the fisherman, but with traditional oars, to pull up the seaweed (this is a fresh water lake) from the bottom of the lake, pile on their boats, and later mix with dirt to make floating islands on which they plant various truck crops.  The wet seaweed is, obviously, very heavy, but they lift it with poles to the inside of the boat until they have a very full load.

Shan women of Pao tribe

The seaweed and dirt are mounded into very long rows about 3 to 4 feet wide.  Right now, these floating fields are planted with thousands of tomato plants.  The farmers know exactly how many plants they can put on a row before it will sink.  The tomatoes put their roots into the water beneath the 2 or 3 foot high row of seaweed/soil and produce huge quantities of tomatoes.  The rows float, so are anchored with long bamboo poles.  Our guide told us that rich families pay from $200 to $500 US to buy sections of these floating rows.  When that happens, the bamboo poles are pulled up, the row is cut, and the newly purchased section is towed by boat wherever the purchases wants it.  During the fallow season, grass grows on the long mounds, so must be cleared when it's time to plant the next crop.  All farming--planting, weeding, fertilizing and picking--is done from boats that can move in the water separating the farmed mounds.

Via boat, we floated through several villages with homes on stilts.  There is a mix of shabby and substantial.  All the houses have many windows which the occupants open during a big storm so that the winds won't blow down the houses.

Stupas in temple above Inle Lake

The Shan Highlands are the home to 7 Shan tribes, which have often been at war with the Burmese government.  Many of the women still wear traditional dress, which is usually a black shirt and longyi and a brightly colored scarf wrapped around the top of their heads.  They carry large loads of produce and wood on their backs and smaller loads on top of their heads.

Temple carving

Today, we visited a 400 year old temple with 1000 stupas in varying states of ruin.  It is on top of a low hill and spills down the sides of the hill.  We took a roundabout trail to the top in order to avoid the more than 200 tourist shops that line the traditional route to the temple.  There are intricately carved friezes and statues on many of the stupa doorways.  The government has begun restoring the stupas, with the help of donors who adopt one of them, but the site is still mostly covered with trees, vines and shrubs, with the old stupas peering out of the jungle.  It is quite a lovely place, made somewhat haunting by the broken pieces of statues littering the ground and the creeping vegetation which is only slightly held in check.

Don's favorite visit of the day was to a tea house whose owner decided to bring back the Burmese cat.  She bought several in Hong Kong and now breeds them selectively.  She has 32 right now and has sterilized all but 3 so that she can keep the population under control (which is more than you can say for the dogs and cats that roam the streets and villages).  They live in great cat luxury.