January 22 - Inle Lake 2

An entire day on the lake.  The day was fascinating and educational from a cultural perspective.  Just before we left the dock we had a brief explanation of how the fishermen use a unique cone shaped net.  Minutes later we saw a fisherman demonstrate the technique for us *(no fish that I saw).  We drove for about a half hour with everyone save me freezing.  I would guess the temperature was around +10 Celsius.  Of course it wasn't long until they were happily warm and i was far too hot.  Along the way we saw a great many boats, some fishing, some gathering weeds from the bottom of the lake to use to add to the floating gardens to ultimately produce more soil and some heading for the market with their goods for sale.  One of the most fascinating things to see was the people paddling their long narrow boats standing on one foot and using the other to hold and propel the paddle.  You will have to examine the photographs to get the true picture.

The most amazing site of the day was the myriad of boats moving in and out of and parked near the market.  Talk about a traffic jam!  Even though i saw it I don't understand how they manage to get their boats in and out without accident.  Not to mention how they locate them later.  And we think we have problems finding our vehicles in mall parking lots!  Can't hold a candle to this situation.  This market is huge, people and stalls everywhere.  It takes about an hour and a half to walk around the whole thing. Unfortunately, in my opinion, much of it is devoted to touristy stuff and was of little or no interest to me.  The stalls were so close and the people so numerous that I couldn't find a good vantage point to take photographs so I didn't get as many good ones as I did at the smaller one yesterday.  I saw a lot of vegetables and beans that I didn't recognize but I didn't make it as far as the meat area.

Besides the market we visited a couple of weaving shops (one used threads form inside of lotus stems and the other used cotton and silk), a blacksmith shop, a paper making shop (from tree bark), a goldsmith and silversmith shop and several pagodas.  A cigar/cheroot making shop was quite interesting and the product pleasant to smoke.  The cheroots are all handmade by young women who complete each one in a matter of seconds.  At the floating gardens all that we saw was flowers but as we were driving I also saw tomatoes and beans.  All of the people I saw working in the gardens were in boats around the edges so I don't fully understand how the whole thing works.

Breakfast was fried noodles and coffee and lunch was passably good chicken, vegetable and vermicelli soup and battered fresh fish from the lake.  The fish was listed on the menu as "tempura" but the batter was nothing like tempura batter but almost identical to what I make at home.

Tomorrow is already the last full day of the Myanmar tour....