Day 5: Inle Lake

Ken had organised the hotel manager, Niti, as our guide for a trip around Inle Lake (a steal at five bucks for the three of us, Yoshi included). Niti had chartered a lake boat for us (a huge war canoe), complete with padded seats and parasols, and planned an extraordinary trip that would see us visit not only the tourist attractions but also get a real insight into the life of the local lake people (the Intha).

On the way out we intercepted a fisherman in a dugout canoe, fishing in traditional Intha style by balancing on one foot at the end of the canoe while holding a large basket with one set of toes into which he was jabbing a spear. What was even more interesting was the Intha method of rowing with the shin (the lake is big and the arms get tired). He looped his leg around the oar, and swept it through the water with a circular movement that looked like it should have dislocated something. Everyone on the lake, barring those with an outboard motor, rows like this. 

First stop was the morning market, which moves around the lake to different villages on a daily basis, so they all get a share of the benefits. There were vegetables, chillis and spices of all kinds, and mountains of the local specialty: Inle tomatoes grown on floating vines. We were introduced to the local snacks: savoury rice crackers and yellow-bean tofu (made by Niti’s family), which we were told does murderous things to the insides if not eaten within five hours of production. Niti pointed out a rare sight – a Chin hilltribe woman, identifiable by her headscarf.

Amid the market, as in many populated areas in Myanmar, were stray dogs suffering from mange and scavenging a living among the refuse. Not having had my rabies vaccination I was very nervous about the animals, since the nearest hospital capable of dealing with a rabies case was Bangkok and at that stage we didn’t even know if the international airport in Yangon was still open. Besides, Inle Lake was at least two days hard travel from the capital making a bite from the wrong animal an excruciating death sentence. I gave the creatures a wide berth at every opportunity.  

We headed for one of the floating villages, Nampan, a maze of houses on stilts in the water, looking rather like a bamboo Venice. This was the tourist centre: we visited a souvenir shop with young girls who had rings around their necks so that they were grossly elongated, apparently a traditional way of protecting village women from having their throats gouged by rampaging tigers but now a great way to get a few foreigners into the shop. They waved hankerchiefs and did a little dance for us while we sipped tea, but after holding a bundle of the extremely heavy bronze ringlets, I was more interested in interrogation.

“Does it hurt your neck?” Niti translated. “No,” they said shyly. “Can you take them off?” They mimed that they could, ring by ring, if they so chose. They appeared perfectly happy, even proud, of what we might too quickly condemn as an exploitative deformity.

We saw something similar when we visited a shop filled with young girls making cheroots at astonishing speed. Child labour maybe – but they earned the comparatively good wage (for Myanmar) of $US1 a day, kept out of the sun, did two four-hour shifts and were given an hour for lunch, and passed the time in company singing contentedly – much better conditions than many of the labourers we saw across the country. I took a great photo of one of the girls, after Ken thoughtfully moved the large box marked ‘DONATIONS’ behind a pillar. 

We visited a floating blacksmith’s shop, run by one of Niti’s relatives, where one bloke pumped the bellows and held the metal object still, while four others crowded around and smashed it with hammers in perfect rhythm, millimetres from the other bloke’s thumb. They could go for hours, Niti explained proudly, and had never missed a beat (luckily, because to do so would probably be fatal for a least one of them). 

We passed a white lotus plantation, which are incredibly rare and can only be harvested for two months of the year. The silky strands of the stems are spun into fabric which is used to make ornamental robes for very important monks – and talking-point shawls for Westerners at US$50 a pop. 

We also visited a silverware shop, where Ken expressed great interest in a silver and sapphire necklace for his wife, but was worried about spending the $250 (a ridiculous price for what was an enormous piece of bling) and running into trouble later in the country.

The bane of Myanmar’s tourism economy are the sanctions – one of their most noticeable effects. With no international banks in the country, tourists cannot use credit cards or get more money once in the country, and so are extremely careful with what they spend. 

It’s something that severely restricts the money being funnelled into the local populace at a grassroots level, along with the pitiful baggage limits of the small airlines that fly to the country. Souvenirs are basically a no-go.

We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the lake. We ordered fish (of course) but the waiter explained that they didn’t have any. But it wasn’t an objection, only an observation. He clicked his fingers and another waiter with a fishing rod jumped into his canoe and paddled away… returning 20 minutes later with three huge lake fish. After lunch we had to sit and wait for the boat driver to finish his game of volleyball with the off-duty waiters. His team had lost 1500kt betting on it, Niti explained, and he needed to make it back. The team lost again, the driver resigned himself to his losses and we motored out across the lake to the non-touristy villages. 

We visited Niti’s family’s house, a bamboo and teak construction with several storeys, sitting above the lake on stilts. Outside we could see yellow tofu drying in the sun. We were introduced to his family, and posed with them for photographs amid tea and local rice crackers. The walls were decorated not with paintings, but framed magazine clippings.

The boat driver headed to another house where we were to swap the motor-powered canoe for a dugout, which was small enough to navigate the floating gardens. The relatively comfortable bamboo houses could be built in four days, Niti explained, because the entire village would chip in and help. Mosquitoes were kept at bay not with nets and windows, but by the countless fish in the lake below that gobbled up the larvae. 

It was here that I was introduced to a peculiar but somewhat addictive past-time: jumping cats. The monks a nearby monastery (Nga Hpe Chaung) had in their many idle moments taught a herd of kittens to jump through cloth hoops on demand. ‘Jumping Cat Monastery’ had become something of a tourist attraction since finding its way into the Lonely Planet, much to the chagrin of the chief monk who was convinced that what tourists should be more interested in were yet more Buddha images. Monks had been banned from performing the tricks, which were now conducted once a day by local villagers – who practiced in their homes.

At our canoe stop I received full instruction and a great deal of practice at it. A squealing kitten would be caught and placed before me, whereupon I would wave a hoop above its head and watch with a silly grin as it sailed high into the air before crashing down in the opposite corner. It was much more fun than when we saw the real thing being performed at the Jumping Cat Monastery on the way back to Nyaungshwe. 

We said goodbye to the cats and the hordes of local children who’d arrived to have their photo taken (very few Westerners make it to this part of the lake), and took a dugout canoe up and down the floating tomato gardens. Ken almost capsized it reaching out to snare a sample fresh from the vine.

It started to torrent with rain. Out of nowhere, Niti appeared in another dugout piloted by half-a-dozen local children clutching a bunch of umbrellas. We made our way to a massive teak monastery in the middle of the swampy undergrowth, and found the ground floor completely deserted apart from a massive mountain of rice and several hundred barrels of fresh water (the ground floor was used for special events like monk graduations, which would see thousands of villages attending, explained Niti).

Climbing the stairs as the rain thundered down on the monastery’s roof, we were met with the sight of an enormous Buddha and a gold throne towering over about 30 novice monks doing their homework on little low tables. The camera was out almost instantly – with the grey, misty light shining through the huge windows and cracks in the walls, it was far too good a photo opportunity and I spent at least half an hour filling my memory card.

I was eyeing the throne with interest when I was steered over for an audience with the chief monk, fairly young for the job at only 27 years old. He said we were welcome to stay for the night if the rain kept up, and did we like rice, because that was all there was.

I was looking forward to it, and the incredible photos I would get to take, but the rain stopped and Niti manoeuvred us back down the stairs – but not before I had downloaded my pictures to the monastery’s computer (used for exams and powered by generator).

We returned the dugout after bailing the rainwater out, and got back into the war canoe for the trip home. We visited the Jumping Cat Monastery on the way back, but it was nowhere near as much fun as the practical demonstration back in the village.

The sunset photos we sadly meagre because of the cloud cover, but I was very happy with my shots from the monastery. We tipped the boatman enough to cover his volleyball losses twice over, and arrived back at the hotel to discover the staff sitting in the dark, surrounded by candles. The power was out, and they were waiting for us to get back before firing up the generator.

Dinner was an experience. Ken wasn’t too sure about my choice of restaurant – Italian – but I was curious. Yoshi came along quietly, as always.

Before sitting down we were given a grand tour of the restaurant by the manager, who spoke broken English with an accent that was half Burmese and half Italian. He explained that seven years ago an Italian lady had visited Nyaungshwe and taught himself and a few other Burmese how to make pizzas and pasta, and sent them a pasta roller from Italy afterwards.

He now exported his mozzarella from Australia, his ham from Denmark, and grew his own basil and mint in the garden around the restaurant where it flourished like a weed in the tropical climate. We tried the Cuban mojitos (with fresh mint) and the pizzas, which were very passable. “Woodfired!” exclaimed the manager proudly, despite the total absence of coal or gas for about 800 kilometres in either direction. I thoroughly enjoyed my pizza cooked with old-growth teak.