More about Inle Lake--the text explains the pictures

The market with 1,000 shops at Inle Lake. I didn't get many good pictures--I was too busy shopping.


Beyond the market was a sea of ancient pagodas, overgrown and eerily beautiful.



The long-necked women. Is this exploitative or what?


And yet I morbidly publish another closer picture of these poor souls.

I believe I left off in Inle Lake although I’m not sure since I have not had access to the internet in some days. I’m hopelessly behind in this chronicle because I spend all my free time trying to figure out why the internet won’t work. My new best friend, Jody, the IT guy at the Adare Manor Hotel in Adare Ireland says my computer is broken, but I think it is a matter of a simple security adjustment which nobody knows how to do. Eric will figure it out as soon as we get home, which now is very soon.

But more about Inle Lake. As I write this I am more than two weeks removed from that strange and magical place. I am left with disjointed memories which seem months rather than mere weeks ago. My pictures refresh my memories: submerged water buffalo with only their heads above water; stilt shacks with tin or thatched roofs next to substantial edifices, also on stilts, where the people both live and work; longboats of tourists mixed with leg polers fishing or carrying cargo; long canals created by the floating islands; standing fishermen perched precariously on the tips of narrow boats dropping their conical nets into the water or pulling them out and checking for fish; an ancient monastery in the middle of the lake with monks going about their daily business; several luxurious hotels like our Inle Princess suspended over the water like enclaves of exclusivity where the average Intha will never go; restaurants with white tablecloths and white jacketed waiters incongruously poised to serve patrons as if in some big city rather than right in the middle of the lake; commercial enterprises covered with advertising posters and other propaganda; young children approaching us by boat selling trinkets or simply begging; and misty hills with the faint smell of smoke which we only identified the second day as a nightly burning of trash. I think I mentioned that this is very much a working lake and not just a recreational haven for the idle rich.

We visited a monastery the first day after checking into the hotel. It had been advertised as the monastery with the “jumping cats” where apparently the monks, when not meditating, had trained cats to jump through hoops--not an easy feat as you cat owners know. I must admit to being pretty excited about this oddity, but when we arrived Nu Nu found out that they had stopped showing the performing cats because they were overshadowing the holiness of the place itself. The tourists were showing more interest in the cats than in the Buddha. It was a little disappointing, but Nu Nu said she was so glad--she had hated the jumping cats and was much happier explaining to us the history of the monastery and the ancient artifacts which decorate it without having to take a back seat to a bunch of trained cats. I had to agree--grudgingly. Later, Tom and I sat on a bench and talked to one of the monks who not only spoke English, he knew about Dallas, the Cowboys and other things Texan. He said he had been a monk for twelve years, was 33 years old, and had been at the Inle Monastery for the last three years. And he wanted to know all about us and why we chose to come there. He seemed on the level to me, but Nu Nu said later she thought he was a fake monk, one who preys on tourists. For what I don’t know since he didn’t ask us for anything.

One day we went to a market with 1,000 shops. Or at least it seemed like that many and Nu Nu swore there were that many. We left the hotel in our now familiar long boats, traversed the lake and then poled down a long canal where we were let out at the beginning of a vast market with hundreds of tin roofed lean-tos, one after the other, each housing one or more Burmese entrepreneurs selling wares of every imaginable kind. I was in my glory, of course, but Nu Nu the slave driver said we had only an hour and fifteen minutes and then we would meet for another more wonderful sight. We wandered through the vast array of shops and as before, when you pick up something and show even the slightest interest, the seller is all over you like a swarm of bees. Everything is so cheap though, that it is hard to resist. Only space limitations curtailed the amount of buying because the money spent was pretty minimal.

Speaking of buying, I will come home with quite a few Burmese souvenirs, nothing expensive, but enough to stuff our luggage to the breaking point. We were told by ATJ that the U.S. government forbids Americans from bringing anything Burmese into our country, as a sanction against their repressive government, but we will hope that we can say the stuff is from Thailand or China and get through customs with it. And anyway it helps the people when you buy their wares. In my past experience, I am always nervous about customs, but we are such small potatoes that the customs officers just wave us on through. I’ve graduated from listing every little two dollar item to just saying “miscellaneous souvenirs--$200.” Anyway, I’m sure they won’t care about the inexpensive things we bought--the rules apply more to gems and jade and the more expensive crafts--I hope. I’ll sweat a little as usual when the customs man gives me his stern, what-are-you-hiding, look.

Among other things, I couldn’t resist buying a couple of the popular puppets that were for sale everywhere. I also bought two longyis, the fabric tubes that the women and men wrap around themselves for clothing. Nu Nu gave us several demonstrations of how to wrap them and I think I have it down pat, although I can’t imagine actually wearing one at home. Maybe around the house. I bought a lacquer ware box, some wood carvings of the omnipresent Buddha, lots of cheap bracelets and some fabulous lacquer bowls that I can serve soup in--the seller promised me they would hold hot or cold liquids. Nu Nu rolled her eyes. The potential for fake is everywhere, even in lacquer ware.

The hour flew by and soon we all met up again and Nu Nu led us across a wooden bridge and through a covered arcade, it too lined with shops, and out the rear of the market where we caught our first glimpse of an ancient collection of pagodas, unlike any we had seen before. These were from the 12th to the 14th centuries, many of them overgrown with the roots and branches of trees, made of crumbling brick, but still showing the intricate carvings and magnificent painting that originally covered them. There were hundreds of them. At one time, each one had been topped with a golden spire and a bell, but now only a few spires remain and Nu Nu said they had been pilfered by Thais and could be bought in Thai markets for a few dollars. It seems that every country has its thieves.

The last place we visited on Inle Lake was the village of the "long-necked ladies." I'll post a picture because it is hard to believe that this is still going on in the 21st century. The brass ring is put on the young girl's neck and then added to, layer after layer over the years, until she has a coil that stretches her neck to many inches longer than normal. This is not bad enough, but she wears that coil 24 hours a day for the rest of her life. We were shown a sample coil and they are NOT light! There were four of these ladies on "display" ranging from quite young with just a few rows of coil, to quite old (although she probably isn't as old as she looks) with you-count-em rows of coil. To me it was reminiscent of the foot binding that went on in China for centuries where young girls' feet were wrapped and constricted so that by the time they reached adulthood their feet were only a few inches long. But that was outlawed in the 1920's at least. Nu Nu said that the practice is dying out, thank God. Kim said she didn't believe it, that it was a tourist trick, but even if it is, imagine those poor necks without the support of the coil. It's a strange world indeed.

That night we had our farewell dinner at the Inle Princess--just the eight of us since Nu Nu was staying somewhere else and the boats stop running at dark. We all agreed that we were a great group and we all had enjoyed each other immensely.