He Ho & Inle Lake
August 26 2002
It is possible to take a ferry up the Irrawady to Mandalay but we chose not to do this because we heard the ferry was government-run and we tried very hard not to support government-run operations and second because we heard that Mandalay is a big, noisy, tout-filled beggar-filled city that we have had enough of over the course of this journey. So we took the one hour flight from Bagan east to HeHo and from there a taxi through Shwenyaung to Inle Lake.
Inle Lake is 22 km long and 11 km wide and outrageously beautiful.
After exploring the town of Inle and it�s markets for a couple days we took an all day boat trip around the shallow lake. Our Intha boat paddler stood in his longyi (length of cotton loom-woven cloth wrapped around and tucked in at the waist) on the stern of the flat-bottomed boat onone leg and wrapping the other leg around the oar slowly plied the calm black water dotted with floating islands and water hyacinth.
Hills rim the lake on all sides; the lakeshore and lake islands harbor nearly 20 villages on stilts mostly by the Intha people that are culturally and linguistically separate from their neighbors in the rest of the Shan state around them. The people use the same long flat boats to navigate to and from their homes and small lakeside businesses. Our paddler predictably stopped at a silk weaving factory and an umbrella cottage business. I bought a piece of silk the design of which was developed by the grandmother of the owner so it felt very special.
I bought a piece of plastic to cover myself for 50 kyats (pronounced chat; there are about 980 kyats to the US dollar which everyone trades on the black market-about 10 times the official rate at the bank).
Burma�s incredible ethnic diversity means a wide range of handicrafts and we came away with several beautiful Shan shoulder bags, some pictures of the beautiful Pa-O and Palaung ethnic people in their colorful clothes. and some wonderful Shan food in our bellies. The Pa-O�s wear black with red trim and colored towel swrapped around their heads.
Tags: Boats, Burma, Burma (Myanmar), Excursions, Inle Lake, Markets, Myanmar
Zoe