Advertisement
Published: January 24th 2013
Nyaungshwe
Jetty with pagoda15 January 2013
Painted blue, green and yellow shutters and doors on natural bamboo and woven palm houses on stilts are scattered in and around the lake. Matching curtains are tied with contrasting ribbon. It is all very chic. The villages here are better off than other areas we've passed through. Though the lake shore has receded by about two miles all round, the lake is still vast and beautiful. The floating gardens where villagers grow onions, garlic, tomatoes, bitter gourd, and flowers, herbs and rice are flourishing. The produce in the local markets is testament to this. There is food for everyone.
The floating villages perch picture perfect over the water. Fishermen's houses have large fishing nets slung underneath to keep the catch alive and fresh until market day. Shops display their wares strung up in the windows with the orchids. The scene is idyllic, except of course for the constant noise of boat engines, but these are a necessary evil and the growling long-boats act as busses to the shore for people and produce, and as transport to bring the tourist and his Yankee dollar onto the lake. And tourism is booming!!
Several very
large hotels with hundreds of rooms are currently being constructed on the lake. I imagine that in 5 years' time Inle will have receded by another two miles and there will be toilet paper floating everywhere instead of gardens. But maybe I am just being cynical and this has all been thought through and planned with environmental protection and sustainability in mind. That is what the billboards about "protect your environment " insinuate; but I notice that they are only insinuating this in English so only for the concerned tourists' benefit. Anyhow, for now Inle Lake is really lovely. The serenity is quite overwhelming (when the motor is turned off), and the landscape is just beautiful.
We are staying in Nyaungshwe - which means golden Banyan and is a new name for the village - something to do with erasing the tribal past. This was once the seat of Shan sky lords... It was once situated on the lake shore, but now we have to travel some way down a canal to get to the lake. Some of the recession of the lake has been due to conglomeration of the floating gardens. They eventually turn into solid ground and
become reclaimed in a way that would make the Dutch proud. Once reclaimed, it seems they become sugar cane plantations. The other reason for the recession is the increase in water usage. Tourists need to shower!!
There are several villages and monasteries on the lake. Each village seems to have its own little industry which it has begun to specialise in. People here are industrious and have grabbed the tourism opportunities with both hands. When you go out onto the lake by boat, be aware that you will be driven to several workshops you may or may not be interested in visiting, as the guides and boatmen get commissions when you shop. This said, most of the places we stopped at were interesting anyway, and we were never pushed to buy anything. We did however notice some very irate people on other boats... Just a pleasant "no thank you", is all it takes really.
The best way to go on the lake is to arrange your own boat and driver down at the Nyaungshwe jetties. You can tell the driver exactly where you want to go, but he will probably do the shopping detours anyway.
Another way
to go is by arranging the trip with a tour agency in town. It is a bit more expensive but you get a guide to go along, and sometimes this can be useful when you have questions that need a slightly more advanced English answer. If we were going to do it all again, we would probably skip the guide though. Our guide was lovely but he was a bit exasperated by the fact that we didn't want to do the obvious tourist stuff and just wanted to float around seeing villages and water gardens. We apologised sincerely at the end for being such bad tourists and he was very gracious about it.
One of the selling points of the Inle Lake experience is the five day "floating market". It all sounds wonderful and exotic, but in reality it has become just another tourist souvenir market and is nowhere near "floating", except for on one of the days when it is held on the lake shore. Basically the market moves from village to village around the lake in a five day cycle. It was once a produce market but all that has been changed by tourism.
We were
sold on taking the boat trip on the day that the market was in Indein as this is very "special". Needless to say, once we arrived at Indein we rushed through the "floating market" of souvenir vendors as quickly as we could to visit the quite impressive Indein Pagoda with its multitude of Shan stupas, which are thinner and less bell shaped than the Bamar stupas we had seen in Bagan. The walk up the hill to see it all from above was the best part of the visit, as was the boat trip up the river passing young men watering their water buffalo. The market, well worth a miss unless you want to pay too much for scarves, puppets and lacquerware trinkets.
Indein and No Paw Khon village were the only attractions we asked to visit on the lake, besides the floating gardens. No Paw Khon is known for its lotus thread spinning and fabric weaving. It was interesting to see how the threads are made and spun and the fabrics are really beautiful but extremely expensive. The factory shop sells lotus as well as silk, cotton and mixed silk / lotus products, but only the lotus fabrics
are actually made here.
We tried to avoid the Jumping Cat Monastery, the cheroot making and boat building side shows, some other pagodas, and the long necked women, but we were obviously not firm enough about it as we ended up at all of the above except for the long necked women. We have a bit of an issue with human beings becoming freak shows and had made this very clear when we booked the trip. We really did enjoy drifting through the floating villages and gardens though. Wish this part of the ride could have been extended. And the silversmiths where we also ended up by default were actually quite interesting to watch and their products are pretty and of a high standard.
Besides all these things, Inle Lake is famous for one other thing - the fishermen who stand and row their canoes with one leg while they are casting their nets. Impressive to say the least, and so photogenic!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.114s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0665s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
