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Published: August 19th 2007
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An overnight bus ride North of Yangon is Nyaung Shwe, Inle Lake area. Generally the next stop on any tourist's list and well recorded by the Burmese military. They try, or at least request your passport everywhere you go- for bus tickets, guest houses, check points... Anyway, at Inle I found a bicycle, a farm run by a small family w/ two beautiful twin girls, a hilltop temple, a canoe, lots of tomatoes, and "Larry". Larry speaks great (sometimes hilarious) english. He takes tourists on hikes he himself doesn't like. And he longs for the peaks around the city of Kalaw, a small town further nw of Nyaung shwe. Business is business, but he seemed to much prefer living simply in the hill country. He was more than happy to speak of all these things with me, after two days I had a figurative and literal map of his life through various stories and his tendancy to draw pictures as he speaks. As his father was a member of the british armed forces he has enjoyed certain priveleges throughout his life- learning to speak english well, and the ability to obtain a passport being the two of the more significant compared
retribution.
remember austin, one for Buddha, one for your mother, one for your father, one for your family, and one for you. to his peers. He had a following of local boys for whom he was more or less a father figure- some helped remodel his new shop by day and they all crashed on his floor by night. In an especially good mood, he'd halt work, order a round of mandalay beer and potato chips from the market- the boys would disappear and return w/ said goods, plus 3 or 4 locally made guitars. He'd sit back in his office chair, almost appearing as the throne of Larry's court, smoke a cheroot and clap along with the boys. we had fun. the guys were excellent musicians, one in particular who played the best rendition of 'Hotel California' I'd ever heard. They were dissapointed I didn't know any bon jovi or the scorpions by heart...
Around Inle are some things to do, but you can't help but feel you're hurrying to check items off a list. Our first morning was spent practicing Burmese phrases over breakfast then jumping on bicycles to explore around the lake. A quick stop at a betel stand came before another heavy rain- we waited patiently under the small shelter, spitting crimson into the road until the
rain let up. w/ the betel nut in my cheek I climb, it starts to turn chalky and distasteful, but a great grove of plumeria appears, the sweet smell of the white and yellow flowers making me forget about the betel.. Onward I was distracted by fields of sunflower (many of wich are used for the local sunflower-chilli sauce which is delicious) and catepillars. Eventually we found a young man willing to lend us his canoe for a few hours- after a small ego battle of deciding who would steer from the back we were off.
while there are boat trips on the lake and plenty of tourist sites to see, this canoe trip was much more enjoyable in retrospect- the favorite was stopping about the many floating fields of tomatoes, an interesting agricultural practice in the area. sediment is dragged off the floor of the shallow lake, piled with other organic matter and produce grown from the protruding mounds. Back in town you can watch the motor boats arrive w/ bushels of tomatoes in the afternoon. These are then carried on land, put into bamboo crates, and stacked into trucks to be distributed across the country. The ride
back to town at dusk was magic- herders bringing in their cattle and water buffalo from the fields, kids coming and going from school riding bicycles in their pressed shirts and green longyis, some fellas playing volleyball on a dirt court next to the road, and my favorite, young monks playing 11 a side out front of the monastery. Smiling and waving 'Mingalaba's' and 'hello's' in all directions.
I did take a motor boat tour of the lake and it was socially uncomfortable- locals pile into these boats by the dozen for transport, but as a tourist you're zipped around 2 or three at a time, feeling like a schmuck. A very shallow lake, Inle hosts several floating villages, produce fields, even resorts- at one point we pulled into one of these villages... Ahead I could see a dozen or so canoes loaded down and paddled by several local women each. As it became apparent we might run into these people w/ our large boat I became agitated, stood up, and started yelling at the boat driver hysterically. It really looked dangerous until I realized that these women wanted to be there. They were jockeying for position. As our
boat approached they paddled furiously then grabbed onto the hull w/ all of their might to cruise alongside as close as possible to the tourists, their trinkets for sale resting in their laps- "Hey Mr! Lucky Money!" I couldn't help but think we had capsized several who had risked getting too close... the rest of the day felt a bit like a zoo exhibit- stop at the market to see the padaung (giraffe neck) women, all dressed in full regalia with their beautiful silver neck rings, they sit in the back of shops weaving together when tourists show up to take their picture. The tradition is wonderful to read and learn about, the regalia quite beautiful, but I much prefered Pascal's description of his grandmother, her jewelery and nightly stories, a heroine in his eyes, than to see these women on exhibit.. There are also a number of such women living on the Northern thai-burmese border in refugee camps who will similarly set up a hoaky 'traditional village' on the tour bus circuit to put on a show for a few foreign dollars.
I followed Kenny's advice (and a carefully drawn map) and skipped out on the hike to
kalaw, a 1 to 2 day trek through agricultural fields where small villages are seasonally erected and disassembled to create a certain atmosphere strictly for foreigners. On to the Kalaw hill country, a four day trek, a wizard, burmese economics lessons, a medicine man who prefers cheap chinese western medicine to his own, leeches, cool air, cheroots, Nepalese food and a fabulous train ride....
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