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.

A boat, a Monastery and a village

Whilst in Hsipaw, we took a boat along the river and then walked up to another small monastery.

Now I have a bit of a fear of being under water, which in theory shouldn't be an issue in a boat, but for me, it depends on how safe and stable I think the boat is, and whether I think I am at risk of falling in.

Strangely, after some initial anxiety, I had no worries about sitting on the side of the zodiacs in our polar trips, but these long narrow ones horrify me!  They dip far to low from side to side, especially when we are getting in and out of them, and I am convinced that either I will fall in or the whole boat will overturn.


So you can imagine that I wasn't best pleased when part way there, our engine died.  Our driver paddled over to the edge, but there we were, bobbing around helplessly and, in my head, precariously.  The other boat came back to pick us up, which necessitated an extra round of getting off and on again, and we finally made it to the start of our walk.

Once we got the short uphill bit out of the way, it was a very pleasant walk.  We met a lovely lady in her 60s who lived in a little wooden platform room here in the middle of nowhere.  She was very excited to meet us, telling us all that she had no teeth, and giving us little hugs.

We passed teak trees - which legally can only be planted by the government or monks and you get three year in prison for cutting down.  We also saw pineapple plantations, where we were told that the ones here are the best in Myanmar.

Once we arrived at the monastery, we had the chance to taste the pineapple and it was indeed excellent, very sweet and juicy.

After a brief stop with the monks, we went back to the boats and back down the river, stopping off at a small village called Chin Lone.

The village has no roads to it, so can only be reached either by boat, or on the once a day train.  They collect their water from wells, and some of them have solar panels to supplement the unreliable electricity supply, but these limited amenities didn't stop at least one of the homes from having a satellite dish too.

We watched the locals putting their harvest of corn cobs through a machine to take off the kernels, and we were able to take a look at their lovely homes with the woven bamboo walls.

Covenas, the San Bernardo Islands and a cocaine haul

We left Medellin at 5am. We knew it was a really long drive, so we understood the reason for the early start, but still, 5am! And if that wasn't quite bad enough, because the hostel here is the only place since Buenos Aires that I have had a hairdryer, or am likely to again until Christmas, I couldn't bring myself to pass up the chance to wash and dry my hair before we left, so had to get up at 4:15.  If it hadn't been that the next days were camping in hot weather, which generally means bad sleep, we might not have bothered going to bed at all.

cloud filled valleys

So we set off on our fifteen hour journey to the Caribbean coast and the hot weather.  It was already getting rather warm when we stopped for breakfast at 8:30.  The scenery always looks good on our long drives, but the most beautiful part of this journey was as we were high in the mountains looking down on valleys full of white clouds.  It looked spectacular, but as usual our photos don't do it justice.

We arrived at Covenas at about 8pm, by which time it was dark.  After a bit of an effort to get Cindy through the gate and parked up, we started setting up the tents.  It was just as well that our three older ladies decided to upgrade to a room, as there was only just space on the 'grass' for the tents we did put up.  Otherwise the camping area was gravel which would have been most uncomfortable.

None of us were impressed with the campsite.  The camping area that we were in looked like it was usually the carpark, and the gravel area at the front is clearly the gardens.  The only shower is a beach style shower - cold water out in the garden, and the one and only toilet didn't flush at all and had huge cockroaches threatening to land on you.  We resolved the toilet issue by demanding they opened up an empty room for us to use the toilet in there, but we were far from happy campers.  The food they served us took forever and whilst OK, was definitely overpriced, and their general attitude was poor.  They didn't even have any cold beers.  Those in the rooms weren't too impressed either.

In the morning, Izzie suggested that if she could confirm rooms could be available, we might want to do a late drive to Cartagena that evening, rather than stay here another night. The agreement was unanimous and enthusiastic.  I gather Dragoman won't be using that place again.


fishermen at Tolu



dolphins



With hope of a better night ahead of us, we got on our bus to Tolu, where we were to pick up a boat to the San Bernardo Islands.  We loitered for a bit while they got themselves sorted out South American style - i.e. slowly and with some confusion, and then got on the twin engine speed boat.  Some of us got a bit wet on the journey out, but only a little and it was a good trip.  We paused briefly at the first island so that we could see people fishing and see the homes dotted around.  We pulled up at the second for two extra passengers to get off as they were staying there for a couple of nights.  It looked a nice place to spend a day chilling out in a sunlounger with a cocktail, but we weren't getting off there.  We hovered near the dolphin pool for a few minutes watching them swim around, before moving onto an 'ecological park' where we got off for a visit.

'snorkelling' for turtles

Well what can I say?  It felt like an old closed down theme park.  We followed a pathway through the edge of some mangroves, stopping off to see the various 'sights' along the way.  The first was a sectioned off seapool that had turtles in it.  Some of us just about managed to catch sight of it in the murky waters, but only just.  one of the ladies in our group is a keen diver and had brought her snorkelling gear along.  We watched with some amusement as she put on the goggles and snorkel, knelt on the edge and put her head in the water.  Don't think she saw much even then.

mangroves



Next we stopped at a few animal enclosures.  There was a water buffalo, a couple of possums, and a few monkeys and birds.  The enclosures weren't great, but not terrible either.  As we neared the next stop, we started to see plastic skulls hanging in the trees.  We were led into what was described as a marine museum, but can only be described as a collection of nautical related junk.  There were some decrepid old diving suits, bits of ships and models of ships etc, in a large covered shelter.  It looked like it had been abandoned years ago.

wierd tableaux



We then had the obligatory stop at a 'bar' where we could buy an expensive beer, before the final attraction.  We were led into a tunnel, and very dark tunnel, which had pools of water on the floor so we all got wet feet.  Every so often there was an alcove in the wall with some kind of generally quite disturbing looking pirate scene!  Eventually we came out into an open space with a very murky looking aquarium in it.  You could see the fish that were close to the glass, but not much else.  Then mercifully we reached the end of this little tour.

We were all quite relieved to be back on the boat again.  This was definitely one of those places that was just so bad that it was good.  It was farcical, and had absolutely nothing to recommend it, but we found it hilarious.


Tintipan beach


The next stop was the island of Tinitipan, where we waded off the boat and had three hours and lunch on a caribbean beach that we had to ourselves.  I was quite happy lying in a hammock under a coconut tree, sipping a coco loco out of a coconut!

On the way back we made a delivery of some tamales (at least we thought it was tamales, but given what we found out later we may have been wrong) to another island.  This one was far from idyllic.  Every available space was covered with run down huts and houses.  It reminded me of that film Waterworld.  This was certainly not intended to be a tourist destination.

very crowded island

The journey back was done at speed and for those of us at the front was pretty bumpy as we hit the large waves head on and dropped over the crests.  For those at the back, especially on the right of the boat, it was very wet. Very, very wet.  But at the end, we all got wet anyway, as we had to get off some distance from the shore in water up to our thighs, and wade our way to land.  We suspect that our bus driver knew this would happen, as instead of the little coach that we had on the way there, we had a minivan with plastic seats on the way back.

Back at the campsite there was good news.  We were striking camp and going to Cartagena.

The next day, we saw a newspaper article that showed that, on the day we were there, there had been a police raid on Tintipan island that had seized 936 kilos of cocaine, worth around $23 million.  So maybe they weren't tamales that our guide dropped off after all?