The thing to do at Inle Lake is to hire a boat to take you around the lake for the day. We found at guy willing to drive us around for $17 total for about 6 hours. Not a bad deal, considering in Cambodia we went on a boat trip that was $20/person for 2 hours. About half of the time you are actually boating around. The other time you are checking out local craft shops and villages. Below is the boat we hired out. Notice the color of the water in this canal. Almost orange!
The boat in this picture is the same size as ours, except theirs is filled with probably 20 local people while ours had 3. It almost looks like the water will spill in at any moment!
The area itself was gorgeous. We had a beautiful clear day, and while it was hot, it was nice on the boat with the wind. There were hills all around the lake, at an elevation about half a mile above sea level. It reminded us of a very green Colorado.
Inle Lake is known for fisherman who stand up to get a bird's eye view of the fish which hide amongst tons of plants that live on the surface of this shallow lake. So they use their hands to throw their nets, and they use one leg to hold the oar and row around. Really amazing.
Drew taking a cap nap in the sunshine.
After boating across the lake, we went up another estuary to the town of Indein. Along the way there were all these small villages that live right on the water's edge. Lots of bridges connected these tiny pieces of land that their village was on. Our driver, Mu, was an expert at threading through the bridge supports without hesitation.
Once in Indein, we followed these little kids up to a lookout, and I'm so glad we did. Looks like CO doesn't it?
Indein is known for having another pagoda with roughly 1,000 little stupas surrounding it. The stupas were all shapes, sizes, and colors.
These are some school kids crossing another bridge. It was around lunchtime on a weekday, so maybe they were going home for lunch?
This lady was from the Padaung tribe somewhere in the Kayah state. They essentially bring a few of these women in to a shop to demonstrate traditional weaving to tourists. It feels weird, as they are essentially using this lady like a zoo animal, but she was very friendly and seemed happy, so maybe it wasn't too bad. Maybe she was actually there on her own terms; it's hard to say. My neck hurt just looking at her though.
This guy is using an old fashioned lathe to turn and carve the handle of an umbrella. It's essentially a giant pulley system that takes advantage of the bendiness of a wooden stick.
These guys are making the long boats we were riding around in. It takes them about 3 weeks to make a long boat, and only 5 days to make a short one. They were using hand drills that my grandfather had.
Probably the best part of the day was when Mu drove us to his home in a small village on the lake. His dad ran a mechanic shop, and his boat motor needed an oil change. While we waited for that, the family actually welcomed us inside of the home and served us these flat, large rice wafers that they would cover with oil and then eat as a snack along with tea. We also got to meet Mu's sister who just had a newborn baby, only 20 days old. I couldn't believe how bundled up both the mom and the baby were, multiple layers, jackets, hats, and blankets. Drew and I were sweating in t-shirts and shorts. Maybe this is a way they help keep mom and baby healthy while still very young, as I doubt they have access to good healthcare. Don't be deceived by how young the girl looks. Mu looked to be 14 and he was actually 27. This sister is probably in her early 20's, so not as young as I originally thought. Along with the sister, we met Mu's mother, who was one of 9 children, a cousin, and an aunt. They took out photo albums to show us all of their family. They seemed so happy even though their home only had two rooms, a living room/kitchen and the sleeping room. But, they had a cell phone! They were such warm and gracious people. It was really cool to experience that.
We stopped at another shop where local women were making cigars wrapped in cheroot leaves. These women could make a cigar in 20 seconds! Fascinating to watch.
The last stop of the day was to see the floating gardens. Locals essentially made a floating structure of wood that they covered in seaweed and lake plants. They then grow mostly tomatoes on these floating beds. The tomatoes grow like crazy as they have all of the nutrients from the lake water right at their root tips. It's actually an ingenious system, but it takes alot of manual labor to take care of them.
The result is millions of tomatoes! All of the bags in this boat are filled with tomatoes. And we saw boats like that cruising past us all day long.
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