Inlay Lake - February 9-10

For our trip to Inlay lake, which is in central Myanmar, we flew into Heho Airport, a pretty good distance from Inlay Lake, where we were met by a driver who took us to another small town where we were met for the motorized ‘long boat’ ride to the lake. The young man who piloted our boat to Inlay Lake was also our guide for our entire stay there and spoke acceptable English and was very familiar with all of the sights in and around the lake.

Our accommodations were at the Golden Island Cottages; a hotel surrounded by the water and would be the equivalent of beach front property elsewhere. However, unbeknownst to us, we were on the major waterway and listened to the very loud sound of the long boat engines as they made their way around the lake. Also somewhat distracting was the, very early to sometimes very late, chanting which was broadcast by loud speaker from the monastery. We should have been forewarned when we found ear plugs on the table next to our beds! Our room was built like the local bamboo huts that are up on stilts and are the common architecture there. Of course, unlike the native people, we did have a bathroom and running water. All in all though, it was a great location to watch the boat traffic.

One of the unique sights around the lake was the non-motorized long boats. There the rowers wrap one leg around one of their long oars while standing at the stern to help propel the boat. This technique gives a rest to the arms from rowing and allows the fisherman a better view of the floating islands, fish and water hyacinths.

We traveled through the floating gardens on our way to our hotel. The gardens are soil, anchored to the floor of the lake by long bamboo poles. They farm jack fruit, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, rice, flowers and various other crops they take to market.

One of the highlights of our trip around the lake was to watch the weaving of silk fabric and the process by which their intricate designs are incorporated into the fabric. The process of thread being drawn from the long stems of lotus plants was by far the most interesting of it all. We were amazed at this process. We also were invited to see how the threads are then dried and used, sometimes alone in fabrics, and sometimes with silk in fabrics. The fabrics are very soft and lovely with the lotus thread woven in.

We visited lots of shops, mostly by boat, as they were on the water not on land. We saw silversmiths, paper making, wooden parasol making, the weavers and thread from lotus plants, long neck ladies and cheroot makers. The cheroot is a leaf-like tobacco and we heard it is very mild. We also visited the Monday morning market some distance away. There were hundreds of long boats and farmers selling their goods, even prepared foods, cheroot, flowers, clothing, and all sorts of souvenirs. As we were leaving, we were escorted out of the area by sellers from their boats selling jewelry, Buddhas, statues of Nats (the Burmese spirits), and many more souvenirs. They all want to make ‘lucky money’ as they called it. Lucky money is supposed to be their first sale of the day. It was not easy to make our way through the hundreds of boats out of the area. I do believe Tamara and I were the only Caucasian people there.

Later on Tamara went on a hike and saw the little girls carrying the straw, the pagodas that look like they came straight from Dr. Seuss, and many other interesting sights. It was hard deciding which pictures to include as we took over 500 while we were at Inlay Lake. There are so many beautiful sights and interesting places there it was hard to decide. Perhaps later I will put them all on Flickr. Inlay Lake is by far my favorite spot so far.