Inle Lake by boat - part 2

After tearing ourselves away from the Burmese cats, we rejoined the others for a lunch stop, before getting back into those pesky boats. My anxiety wasn't helped by the fact that we seemed to break down again. Thankfully, after drafting in circles in the middle of the water highway for a while, we got going again.

After a morning of crafts and cats, by now of course, it had to be time for a temple, and we were soon at the precarious jetty of the Phaung Daw Oo Paya, a place famous for its five gold Buddhas.

Well I say Buddhas, but we will just have to take their word for that, as there has been so much gold leaf offering, that now they just look like golden blobs, or maybe a little pile of Ferrero Rocher. We asked Myo whether, as it seemed to us, it was disrespectful to effectively destroy a Buddha image in this way, but he assured us that because gold is a valuable offering, it is fine.


During the annual pagoda festival, four of these twelfth century Buddhas make an eighteen day boat tour around the lake's villages. They are taken out in a replica royal barge, which is decorated with a craving of the head of the Karaweik, a mythical bird.

They used to take all five out, but in the 1960s, the barge capsized, dropping all of the Buddhas into the lake. Only four were rescued, but when they back to the pagoda, the fifth one was miraculously already back on its shrine. They took this as a sign that this Buddha image does not wish to leave the pagoda, so now only the other four make the rounds.

Back onto the boats - which thankfully had moved to the slightly better landing area - and on to a place making mulberry paper and the rather beautiful paper umbrellas.

They also host a couple of visiting Paduang women, the ladies that wear the brass rings around their elongated necks. Now this was something of a dilemma for us, as we were both fascinated by this, and wanted to take photographs, but we also find the idea of women having to damage their bodies this way quite wrong, especially when we had heard that these days it is often done just to attract tourists.


So we were quite pleased that the two ladies were happy to discuss their neck rings and how they feel about them. The older lady has been wearing her 24 rings, the maximum number, for many years, and whilst she could remove them, her neck would not support her head, so it would be unwise. We picked up a set of rings and they are very heavy.

The younger girl only wears 17 rings, and she assured us that she did it through her own choice, and that with the lower number, she could safely remove them if she no longer wished to wear them. She did say that most girls now choose not to wear the rings, and they are not pressured into doing so. I hope that this is true, and have no reason to think she was not being honest.

As to why the Paduang women started wearing them, there is consensus that it was to protect them from a danger, but we have heard two different versions of what that danger was. One account is that the danger came from hungry tigers that would attack villagers, and the rings protected the areas they would bite at; the other is that it was to make the women unattractive to neighbouring tribesmen, who otherwise might kidnap them.

Back in the boats, we wound our way through the floating gardens, where the locals grow their fruit and vegetables on islands or on a sort of gazebo on stilts that they grow things over.

Our final stop of the day was at the Nga Hpe Kyaung, or the Jumping Cat Monastery, so called because the monks taught the cats to jump up through little hoops.

Sadly, though there are still cats there, they no longer jump. In another case of differing explanations, one reason is that there were complaints that Buddhists shouldn't make cats do things like that, whilst another is that the huge number of visitors were putting too much pressure for more frequent performances. The jumping cat photo is therefore borrowed from the Lonely Planet book.

So with our final stop of the day complete, it was back into the boats for the forty minute trip back. After so many ins and outs successfully completed, to my surprise, I actually found myself starting to relax a bit. After all, as one of our group had confidently said to me, "Don't worry, nothing bad will happen."

Famous last words there as it turned out. We were the last boat to arrive back at the jetty, and when we got ashore, we were surprised to see that one of our group was soaking wet from head to toe. It turns out that whilst she was trying to get out of the boat, it drifted away from the edge and she fell into the water. So, so much for me feeling better about these boats - back to hating them it is!

Inle Lake by boat - part 1

Despite what it may seem like from our last post, we did actually do something other than just eat and drink at Inle. Predictably, we took a tour around the lake in a boat, which is pretty much the only way you can travel here.

This wasn't great for me, as, whilst they did feel a bit more stable than the ones at Hsipaw, they were the long narrow kind that I feel unsafe in. It didn't help that they offered us all life jackets; of course none of us took them because we know that they should be safe really, and it was a hot day.

In fact the couple of times I have been in the water with a life jacket, I hated it because I felt even more out of control than without one, so for me, I would only want to wear one where I really might drown otherwise. That didn't seem likely here.

Of course that didn't stop me feel in anxious in the boat, especially when we were getting in and out. It was made worse because we had actual chairs to sit in and while I know that they actually weren't any higher than the benches before, they felt less safe.

But anyway, off we went, and our first pause was at the mouth of the lake itself to see the guys displaying the famous one legged rowing technique and how they fish with cones. It was interesting to see it close up, but it was a little disappointing to hear that these guys make more money from tourists' tips than the real fishermen do for a day's work. I also find it amusing when I read other blogs and see that some people try to pass off their photos of these guys as the actual working fishermen.

Our first proper stop was at a weaver's workshop. But they weren't just weaving cotton and silk, they are one of the very few places that also make cloth out of lotus. It is a painstaking process, which originally was reserved for making special robes for revered monks. Traditionally the lotus is important, so there is a ritual to the cutting of the stems. Then they remove the thorns, cut and twist the stems and remove the threads from inside. This must be done soon after cutting to avoid decomposition, and wet hands are essential throughout the thread making process.

There are multiple stages of spinning until they end up with a strong thread, which they wash and coat with a gluey substance.

To make a set of monk's robes, requires ten yards of cloth. This means the stems from 220,000 lotus plants have to be prepared into thread, which then takes sixty weaver's ten days to make into cloth. The whole process of making the robes takes about a month.

Lotus fabric was available on sale, mostly with natural dye colours. It was an amazing cloth, a sort of silky linen, soft but hardworking, lightweight, and good for keeping you warm in winter and cool in summer. But, unsurprisingly when you consider the raw materials and work that go into it, it is not cheap, and sadly I didn't feel I could run to a few hundred dollars for a scarf.

After the weavers, we stopped at the blacksmiths and the boatbuilders. Both were interesting, but these stops do feel a bit like tourists are being shuttled around between opportunities to buy stuff.

The next place on the list was a cheroot maker, but at this point a few of us staged a mini revolt and asked if we could go to the Burmese cat sanctuary that we had passed by.

Myo was surprised by this - he obviously hasn't yet had sufficient exposure to the European obsession with animals - but he said if we could get enough interest to fill one of the three boats, then we could go there instead while the others went to see anise cheroots being made. As it turned out, we filled two out of three boats with our alternative option, so off to the cat sanctuary we went.

Burmese have long been one of my favourite breeds of cat, so we had been hoping to see a few whilst in their native country. Sadly though, the breed had been lost entirely, until a woman called Yin Myo Su decided to work with the China Exploration and Research Society to reintroduce them. Thankfully the British had taken some home with them, so they were able to get some pure bred lines from countries like the UK and Australia, and took them to a resort on Inle Lake where they have a specialist team breeding the cats with the eventual aim of seeing them back across their native land.

Apparently they did give one to Aung Sang Suu Kyi, but her dog was too jealous of it, so she had to return it.

The site we visited at Inthar Heritage House is separate from the breeding centre, so it is happy to allow visitors in to make a fuss of their cats. There were 39 cats there when we went and whilst a few ignored us, most were very friendly. I was bending over to stroke one cat, when I suddenly found I had another cat on my back, making itself very comfortable. And when it was time to leave, Nic had great trouble extricating himself from a group that were enjoying chasing his shoelaces.

Inle Lake - a night market and a winery

We arrived at Nyaungshwe, the 'gateway to Inle Lake', in good time for a small group of us to head out to the local night market. It is really more of an evening market, and is quite small, but the quality is good and the prices are very cheap.  We wandered our way along the street, looking at all of the foodstalls, before deciding on the very first one.

The guy here was friendly and helpful, and once we had settled ourselves somewhat gingerly onto the tiny low chairs, we soon tucked into a small feast of tempura vegetables, fried tofu, tea leaf salad, Shan noodle soup (non spicy for us), and a palata, which is basically a kind of pancake - a banana one in this case. All were very tasty.

We went back another time and tried the place at the other end, which some preferred, but we still liked the first one best.

If you aren't sure about street food - though to be honest if it is a popular stall and the food is served hot, then it is one of the best ways to eat - then I can vouch for a somewhat dubiously named place called Beyond Taste. We went there for a group meal, and whilst obviously more expensive than street food, it was still decent value and the food was good. The drinks were cheap too.

We also decided to try out the somewhat unlikely idea of Burmese wine, with a trip to Red Mountain, one of the two local wineries. You can do a quick tour of the process, and then you can sit out in the garden and either try a tasting flight, or just buy by the glass or bottle. It was a great place to sit and watch the sun set. As for the wine, some weren't too great, but we found a couple that were most enjoyable.