Burmese Days Part II: Inle Lake
We continue our story of Burma fleeing Yangon's swelter and head northeast to Inle Lake, a shallow mountain lake nestled in eastern Shan State. A short one-hour flight brought us to Heho airport from which we took a taxi to Naungshwe the principle town on the lake's north end. We were so relieved to be in this mountainous region, where the weather was significantly cooler and the pace equally easy.
Our first day we took a tour 'round the lake via motor boat a visited various tourist focused handicrafts like textile weavers and metal smiths. In the textile shop we took a brief tour of second-generation hand-built looms.
At the entrance this woman demonstrated lotus fiber spinning. The lotus stems are harvested from the lake's waters, exude a spider webby substance that's stretched and rubbed with dampened fingers forming a single strand of fiber. The finished material is similar to hemp in appear appearance and like linen, softens with repeated washings.
We soon learned that while the motor boat was a lovely means of conveyance, it was also very much about pandering to tourists and their wallets. We went on an exhausting loop, from shop to shop doing our best to maintain levels of polite appreciation. Business has been slow, and we couldn't shake the air of desperation among the business owners and the subsequent guilt that came with not purchasing their goods. Rather than finding escapist leisure we were self-conscious of our relative privilege.
There was a flip-side to the tourist consumerism and they were decidedly our favorite bits. Above is a shot of the lake's floating gardens. In a feat of horticultural engineering farmers created a fertile floating bed (a combination of lake sludge and living plant material) to grow vegetables and of all things; tomatoes.
After lunch of fried fish we traveled up an inlet to visit Indein ruins. We moored the boat and walked a stretch to reach the ruins. The way included a long columned corridor lined with evidence of Burma's tourist heyday, a veritable gauntlet of consumerism; abandoned. It was an eerie experience in the context of the thriving surrounding jungle.
The combination of ancient cultural foreignness, crumbling stupas, and the jungle's slow reclamation made for an Indiana Jones vibe. It was an odd feeling really, a generic Hollywood familiarity of a place I had obviously never been....too much Dr. Jones I suppose. It's easy to see how a site like this gets looted, evidence in many head/faceless buddhas as it lies unprotected, uncordoned and yet refreshing as we had the freedom to walked around graveyard of ancient structures. Pretty rad.
Back on the boat amidst the thunderclouds
A couple days after exploring the lake, we spent a day with a hired guide who took us up to a jaunt up into surrounding hills to Pa-O villages. I managed to speak with a few of the villagers
like these grubby guys
and this grandma.
We continued on the trek to a site of meditation caves. Our guide sits at the entrance where the roots of a bodhi tree can be seen growing out of a naturally occurring skylight. Below the skylight on a dais sat the head monk of the monastery, swaddled in maroon robes shallowly puffing a hand-rolled cheroot. On the wall to his right, a life-sized crosslegged skeleton painted in black and white, a reminder our impermanence. Bathed in blue smoke we chatted with the phongyi about the merits of shallow smoking and received a blessing for our donation. An otherworldly experience to say the least, we emerged from the portal-like confines of the caves leaving behind an ancient stage complete with stupa, skeleton, gilded buddha and a faded parasoled phongyi.
After 5 days of boating, exploring caves, renting bicycles to chase hot springs, villages, therapeutic Burmese massages, we moved on to Mandalay the ancient capitol of Burma, but first we had to get there...
We continue our story of Burma fleeing Yangon's swelter and head northeast to Inle Lake, a shallow mountain lake nestled in eastern Shan State. A short one-hour flight brought us to Heho airport from which we took a taxi to Naungshwe the principle town on the lake's north end. We were so relieved to be in this mountainous region, where the weather was significantly cooler and the pace equally easy.
Our first day we took a tour 'round the lake via motor boat a visited various tourist focused handicrafts like textile weavers and metal smiths. In the textile shop we took a brief tour of second-generation hand-built looms.
At the entrance this woman demonstrated lotus fiber spinning. The lotus stems are harvested from the lake's waters, exude a spider webby substance that's stretched and rubbed with dampened fingers forming a single strand of fiber. The finished material is similar to hemp in appear appearance and like linen, softens with repeated washings.
We soon learned that while the motor boat was a lovely means of conveyance, it was also very much about pandering to tourists and their wallets. We went on an exhausting loop, from shop to shop doing our best to maintain levels of polite appreciation. Business has been slow, and we couldn't shake the air of desperation among the business owners and the subsequent guilt that came with not purchasing their goods. Rather than finding escapist leisure we were self-conscious of our relative privilege.
There was a flip-side to the tourist consumerism and they were decidedly our favorite bits. Above is a shot of the lake's floating gardens. In a feat of horticultural engineering farmers created a fertile floating bed (a combination of lake sludge and living plant material) to grow vegetables and of all things; tomatoes.
After lunch of fried fish we traveled up an inlet to visit Indein ruins. We moored the boat and walked a stretch to reach the ruins. The way included a long columned corridor lined with evidence of Burma's tourist heyday, a veritable gauntlet of consumerism; abandoned. It was an eerie experience in the context of the thriving surrounding jungle.
The combination of ancient cultural foreignness, crumbling stupas, and the jungle's slow reclamation made for an Indiana Jones vibe. It was an odd feeling really, a generic Hollywood familiarity of a place I had obviously never been....too much Dr. Jones I suppose. It's easy to see how a site like this gets looted, evidence in many head/faceless buddhas as it lies unprotected, uncordoned and yet refreshing as we had the freedom to walked around graveyard of ancient structures. Pretty rad.
Back on the boat amidst the thunderclouds
A couple days after exploring the lake, we spent a day with a hired guide who took us up to a jaunt up into surrounding hills to Pa-O villages. I managed to speak with a few of the villagers
like these grubby guys
and this grandma.
We continued on the trek to a site of meditation caves. Our guide sits at the entrance where the roots of a bodhi tree can be seen growing out of a naturally occurring skylight. Below the skylight on a dais sat the head monk of the monastery, swaddled in maroon robes shallowly puffing a hand-rolled cheroot. On the wall to his right, a life-sized crosslegged skeleton painted in black and white, a reminder our impermanence. Bathed in blue smoke we chatted with the phongyi about the merits of shallow smoking and received a blessing for our donation. An otherworldly experience to say the least, we emerged from the portal-like confines of the caves leaving behind an ancient stage complete with stupa, skeleton, gilded buddha and a faded parasoled phongyi.
After 5 days of boating, exploring caves, renting bicycles to chase hot springs, villages, therapeutic Burmese massages, we moved on to Mandalay the ancient capitol of Burma, but first we had to get there...
I found you over at Tasty Kitchen...but wanted to tell you that your photography is incredible!!!
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