Inle Lake - Itchy Feets

The Inle Lake area was a great place in which to enjoy the outdoors. The highest lake in Myanmar, it is surrounded by mountains, and is surprisingly shallow. It’s also home to loads of waterbirds.

We based ourselves in the village of Nyaung Shwe, and set out from there. Inle Lake is famous for leg fishermen. They hook an oar in front of one shoulder, then under the armpit and behind their ankle, and use this to steer with one leg with they balance perched on back of boat with the other. With arms they use a stick to gauge the depth of the water, then cast nets. Perched on the edge of their boats, gracefully fishing, they almost resemble waterbirds themselves.

There are floating islands where zucchini, cauliflower, soya beans and tomatoes are grown. Farmers collect seaweed from the lake floor to use as fertilizer.

Tobacco is also grown locally, and cigar factories are all over. Women roll cigars by hand, wrapping them in a cheroot leaf and using a mixture of tamarind, sticky rice and water to glue them shut.

Each woman has to work hard to make 700 cigars a day.

We did a boat tour, which allowed us to visit the floating villages and farms.

We visited a lotus, silk and cotton weaving factory, where the garments are woven by hand on old wooden looms. A decorative men’s longi (traditional skirt) takes one man three days to make.

We were keen to do some trekking, and were advised to hire a guide, which we did. He turned out to be 16 years old. He told us he leads 6 treks a week, and goes to school at night to study English. We climbed, quite swiftly, up a nearby mountain, with panoramic views of the lake.

Lunch was prepared in the home of an old man in a mountain village. The man lived in a stilt house made of teak. He prepared our meal on the woven floor of one of his three rooms, cutting veggies on a mirror before adding noodles and sautéing them over a fire of dried corn husks. After lunch, we visited some caves, including the home of a monk who has lived in a small cave for 11 years.