Myanmar - Inle Lake

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This blog by Jacqui:

An easy flight from Bagan to Heho and by 11 am we are in Naungshwe, the delightful jumping off town for Inle Lake. We stumble upon the Aquarius Guest House which offers clean $12/night rooms and free Chinese tea, banana milkshakes and local snacks whenever we arrive home from an outing. We end up loving this town and start and end our time at Inle Lake here. Luckily for us, the 5-day revolving market happens to be at Naungshwe the day we arrive so we become hunchbacks as we navigate the low tarpolines that offer reprieve from the sun for the market-goers. We try some market noodles which are remarkably delicious and hire bikes to eat and drink our way about town. The following day, Sumi, our non-english speaking boat driver takes us to another one of our honeymoon destinations (I know i know i am totally spoilt!) organized by Lucas - The Inle Princess Hotel (http://www.inleprincessresort.com/. This is serious honeymoon material - spectacular wooden bungalows set amidst the tranquil lake and serene mountains.

We spend a few days exploring the beautiful sprawling lake (at 22 km long and 11 km wide) with its famous longboats and leg paddlers. The highlights include:

- Indein village where you are greeted by Banyan trees and artisans as you disembark from the 1.5 hr long boat ride. The dense collection of Indein stupas - dilapidated and crumbling - are picturesque and are amongst the most interesting religious ruins we have seen so far.

- a deja vu moment reminiscent of the fate of a tour group who were abducted by a Myanmar hilltribe whilst sightseeing Inle lake in a long boat... (Read book: Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan).... when after alot of pointing and nodding at the map Sumi assured us he was taking us to a nearby temple when in fact he was taking us to the (unspectacular) temple of Taung To, 2.5 hours at the southern most end of the lake... when Sumi didn't appear to be abducting us and was in fact peacefully waiting for us we relieved a sigh of relief but every second of that 2.5 hour boat ride was filled with dread...

- the local scene on the lake - the stilt houses, the local fishermen and women, the precise smiling cheroot rolling ladies, the working water buffalo, the manicured floating vegetable gardens and the reflective glass of the lake at dusk.

- doing our own self-guided trek up into the hills, where we stumble upon a small village and are invited in by a sweet, toothless old lady for hot tea and delicious fresh papaya. No english, but plenty of communication via hand gestures, smiles and warm hospitality.

Random information #1 : We barely knew where Myanmar was before we went there, let alone why its not called Burma anymore. The renaming of Burma to Myanmar in the English language was decided by the Burmese military regime in 1989. In 1989 it was decided to correct the spelling of the place names of Burma in English, in order to discard spellings chosen by British colonial authorities in the 19th century. Therefore, spellings closer to the actual Burmese pronunciation were implemented. Thus, for instance, Rangoon was changed to Yangon to reflect the fact that the "r" sound was abandoned long ago in Burmese and replaced with a "y" glide As for the country's name, the commission decided to replace the English name Burma with Myanmar. There were three reasons for that.
1. Myanma is the official name of the country in the Burmese language, and the aim of the commission was to have English place names aligned with Burmese place names and pronunciation.
2. The military thought that the name Myanma was more inclusive of minorities than the name Bama, and so they wanted the English name of the country to reflect this.
3. The military regime has long been suspicious of the colloquial Burmese language, which it perceives as subversive. The regime is promoting the literary language, and so it wanted to get rid of the English name "Burma" which mirrors the colloquial Burmese name Bama.

Random information #2 : Burmese women roll cheroots (Burmese cigars) at a rate of almost 1000 per day. Just 5 kyats (less than $0.75) will buy ten of these cheroots in the market; the women typically make just US$1 for a day's work.

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Comments

[nicola]

good memories
i loved reading your blog and the fotos were excellent. very nice. i was in myanmar too but made no blog . only photo entrys. if you would like to see http://public.fotki.com/nicola-/