Inle Lake (Day 131)
Inle Lake is like a land that time forgot. Villagers live in bamboo houses on stilts, cultivate plants on floating gardens, and travel about in wooden boats, often using a unique “1-leg rowing” technique.
Every day, we explored the lake in a handmade wooden motorboat. Here we are leaving the hotel though a field of floating water hyacinths.
HOUSES ON STILTS
People have been living on Inle Lake for almost 1,000 years.
We visited a family to learn more about their life on the lake. The house was a study in contrasts — and different in many ways from the houses we saw in villages in Africa. The family on the Lake had multiple bins for recycling, trophies celebrating kids’ educational achievement, and a very small fish farm in front of the house.
On the other hand, the house was very simple, made of bamboo and wood. They only got electricity 5 years ago, and they don’t have running water. They have almost no furniture, interior walls, or beds — as you can see here in this shot of the communal family bedroom.
It was so fun to explore the village by boat.
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FLOATING GARDENS
Local farmers grow vegetables on man-made floating islands in the lake. The islands are built out of seaweed and grass with hollow roots, which makes them float. Villagers grow tomatoes, cucumbers and other things in a sort of natural hydroponic environment.
Here, 2 farmers take their products to market.
We learned that the floating islands really do float! Our boat driver showed us by jumping out and swimming under one.
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1-LEG ROWING
One of the most fun things about Inle Lake is that the villagers have developed their own unique way of rowing with 1 leg. This seems to have originally developed because it allowed fishermen to throw a fishing net from a standing position while rowing.
The other main type of boat was the longboat like ours. Like so many things in Myanmar, it was made by hand mostly from simple parts. It is powered by a car engine that is so old that you actually use a hand crank to start it. But some of them can go pretty fast!
We went to a small business where they build wooden boats by hand.
And this shop where they make propellers and other parts. (Note the safety standards are a bit different - welding with no goggles, no gloves and just in flip flops!)
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INDEIN TEMPLES
One day, we went up a river to Indein, an 800-year-old temple complex with 1,048 stupas. Some were crumbling; others were recently renovated. There were very few other tourists, and you could easily get lost wandering among temples.
More cows than people…
Some temples had trees growing right out of them.
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MAKING PAPER
The theme of learning about local crafts continued. We made paper out of mulberry bark using a traditional process. First, you take shredded mulberry bark and pound it with hammers to make a paste.
Then you take the paste and spread it on a screen in water. We also put in purple flower petals for decoration.
Next, you carefully pull the screen up from the water and let it dry.
After it has dried for a long time, you peel the paper off of the screen.
And viola! You have beautiful handmade paper with flowers in it.
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SILK WEAVING
We also went to a silk weaving facility, where people weave fabrics on old wooden looms.
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DINNER ON THE LAKE
One night after dark, we went out for an evening surprise: a dinner on a temporary raft in the middle of the lake. We ate dinner by the light of the moon. After, we shot off surprisingly large fireworks from handheld launchers.
We ended the evening by sending off a group of floating lanterns (hand made and biodegradable of course!). Hazel said the evening was the best surprise of her life.
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