Lake Inle villages

Rice paddies of the hill trives

Having seen several dozen temples, today we opted for a hike through the mountains and valleys above Lake Inle.  It was a great decision.  We started the day with a visit to a local 5th day market, full of stalls selling local produce, flopping fish just caught in the lake, and lots of tobacco rolled into betel leaves with a smearing of lime and chewed like chewing tobacco.  Betel leaves, tobacco and betel nuts are staples here, which leads to the unfortunate habit of spitting the remnants onto the ground.  This market had lots of Shan tribespeople dressed in their traditional costumes (costumes to us, not to them).

Pa O teens at monastery

Our hike, with a guide from a village at the north end of the lake, called Jetty Town by the inhabitants because it has the jetties where boatloads of goods and tourists launch into the lake, started up a rutted road in the heat and humidity.  We continued up past several mountains and across a ridge into a lovely valley filled with Pa O villages and their beautiful rice paddies.  The paddies are watered by streams coming out of the mountains that is channeled into a series of ditches so that the paddies are irrigated by gravity-fed systems.  Happily for us, huge thunderheads rolled in above our heads to give us a little shade as we walked.

Flower vendor at the market

The villages and fields seemed quite empty except for some children, dogs and chickens.  Our guide told us that today is the day before a "no moon" night, so is a day when most of the adults go to the local monastery to meditate.  They also do this on the day of a full moon.  We tramped along up and down hills, enjoying the beauty of the deep green rice fields leading up to the dark mountains, eventually reaching the monastery set in one of the villages.  Pa O women in their bright headdresses (which are actually vividly colored terry cloth towels) were moving about the monastery grounds.  We stopped to chat and photograph some young girls and their attendant boys, all of whom giggled with joy at their photos and jeered at the ones whose photos looked less than superb.

Early stage chicken feed

Our guide carried lunch in his backpack and took us to the home of some of his friends in one of the villages.  We climbed to the second floor, where he opened the window covers made of woven bamboo strips (no glass in the windows, which is certainly not necessary in this warm climate) to create a nice cross breeze.  The room had some oil cloth on half the floor and nothing else but a small shrine to Buddha, set on a table with the day's offerings of food and spices.  We sat on the floor or gazed out the windows across the valley below while our guide fixed lunch of Shan noodles, vegetables, and chicken.  Delicious.

Pa O baby

After lunch, to thank our hosts, who did not share lunch with us, we bought a couple of notebooks at the store next door to give to the 2 children of the house.  Another little girl stood nearby watching all this take place.  One of the little boys who had just received 2 notebooks went over to her and gave her one of his.  It was so immediate and so sweet and so natural.  We took pictures of the baby of the family who had been sleeping so happily in his cradle-swing until his grandmother woke him up to be photographed.

On the way down, the road became quite muddy and we could see where bullock carts had been stuck.  The villagers had laid sugar cane fronds across the worst mud holes to fill them in.  This area grows lots of sugar cane.  Corn is another important crop.  It is dried to use as chicken feed.  There were mountains of deep orange corn drying on every floor and cobs that had not yet been fully dried spread out on large platforms.

Bullock cart on village road

Our transport over the last 3 days has all been by boat (or on foot).  The boats are about 48 feet long and very narrow, shaped like a canoe, but with higher sides.  They are very stable, hold 5 or 6 comfortable armchairs with cushions for tourists to sit in, and maneuver easily through the many channels that come into the lake.  Yesterday, we went up one of the 100 rivers that flow rapidly into the lake, carrying reddish brown silt from the mountains, to the village below the wonderful, mostly ruined temple I wrote about yesterday.  Other channels go through the reeds and marshes at the edges of the lake to houses or villages.  The boats used for transport are all powered by a diesel motor, but the fishing boats are all rowed by foot or traditionally by hand.   I'm sure it's a very big thing to get a motor.  I saw four of the canoe-style boats being pulled by a motor-powered boat today, and the owners were happily snoozing in the bottoms of their boats, pleased, I'm sure, not to be doing the work themselves.

Tomorrow we fly back to Yangon and on to Ngpali Beach.  Tonight we've been enjoying big thunderstorms with heavy rain.  Helps to keep the mosquitos at bay.