Inle Lake

Our final day in Central Myanmar was focused on an exploration of Inle Lake, a large body of water in the central highlands of this part of the country. The day started early as we pulled away from our hotel at sunrise to arrive fifteen minutes at a small pier crowded with wooden boats. I had never seen a boat designed like this before. They were wooden boats built something like a flat-bottomed dory but much narrower. Each boat was about twenty-five feet long and only four or so wide with four passenger seats and a seat in the rear for the pilot. Each had a relative large and noisy one-stroke engine with a three foot shaft rigged so that it could be tilted up to run right at the surface - obviously an engineering adaptation for running in very shallow water. The engine had no box or any other sort of cover so all the working parts were right out in the weather. The design was pretty simple and looked like it hadn't changed in eighty or ninety years. They kind of looked like they would work well in a Model A Ford. Every engine pretty much looked identical. In such a remote area, they must have limited access to spare parts and having all one design (much like the modified tractors we had seen the previous day) must be a strategy to keep things in working repair.

Our transport for the day

We piled our group into a fleet of seven boats and headed off down the channel into the lake proper. It was a cold, but gorgeous morning and as we sped across the lake we saw groups of the exact same boats without passengers. Instead, single men were using the boats to either scoop up lake vegetation or for fishing. The vegetation was piled high in bright green mounds, filling the boats. Apparently it is not for human food, but instead it is dried and sold as fertilizer on local farms. Some of the boatmen were out in open water on the lake gathering wild vegetation. Others were tending floating farms, anchored by bamboo polls driven by hand into the lake bottom and held together by nets and lines. Everything was done by hand. These boats didn't even have the "modern" convenience of a seventy-year old engine.

The fishing was equally human-powered. Each fishing boat held a conical net that was deployed alongside the boat. The fisher would then stand precariously at the bow and slap the water with his oar to drivethe fish into the net which was then hauled back onboard and dumped into the center of the boat. There was no live well or any other convenience to hold the fish. It was all incredibly labor intensive.

Inle Lake fisher

We crossed the lake and visited a couple of temples on small islands. Each temple had a small market with locals hawking hand-made clothing and small wooden carvings. Jewelry was also featured prominently and as it turned out, locally made. We learned this as we were treated to visits to several craft shops including a silversmith, a paper-making facility and wood carvers. Of course there were opportunities to buy these crafts at each place. What amazed me the most was how these folks lived out on these small towns on the lake. Each dwelling was suspended above the water's surface on stilts or stone foundations set into the shallow lake water. Sometimes, dirt had been piled up to make pathways between buildings, but often the buildings were connected by wooden bridges. It was an amazing way to live.

Home sweet home

Our last stop was the most amazing. We navigated tight channels between stilt buildings to arrive at  a place called the Inn Paw Khone silk weaving village. This was a community of forty or so woman who created silk by harvesting plant fibers, hand-spinning them into threads, dyeing the thread with dyes mixed on site and then weaving the silk fabric on large wooden looms. The entire process is done by hand with the only power involved supplying the occasional bare lightbulb above a loom. You can imagine standing in the exact same place two hundred years ago watching the exact same process. Simply incredible. The women who live and work in the village live in small rooms in buildings attached to the weaving facility via wooden foot bridges. They live their entire lives surrounded by water and never really go more than a couple of hundred feet in any one direction.

Spinning silk thread by hand

We ate lunch in a small tourist restaurant attached to the village. The fare was simple, but quite tasty. Mostly rice and vegetables in light curry sauces. Lunch was quick as we had to thread our way out of the lake-bound village, motor our way across the lake and reboard our bus. Following an hour and a half on the bus, we were back at the airport and headed back to Yangon.

It was an amazing visit and I was struck by the fact that we are probably witnessing the end of a long era for this country. With the opening up of Myanmar to western tourists, development can't be far behind. Already we were seeing evidence of western influences in Yangon with advertisements for soft drinks and other products. Apparently real estate speculation is beginning to drive up prices as local business men anticipate investment in the country. Pretty soon I think, Myanmar is going to jump from the nineteenth century right into the twenty-first. I imagine if I have the privilege of seeing this place again in ten years it will be a changed place.

As I write this, we are two days from arriving in India. The transitions are amazingly quick. We have had two days of classes with only two remaining before we are immersed in yet another culture. Coincidently, my school back in Utah is on their Spring Break and a small group of students and faculty are visiting India. It would be amazing to see them, but while we will be in India at the same time, we will literally be a subcontinent apart. I hope their experience will be as amazing as what I've already experienced. We'll be in India for nearly a week, so I won't be posting again for a bit. Thanks for reading my ramblings!