Inle Lake is quite rightly one of the main attractions of Myanmar. The expanse of water is home to many villages on stilts, where lake residents still practice traditional handicrafts such as making lacquerware, hand-weaving with lotus and silk and rolling tobacco to make cheroot (basically cigars). Cue a picture of Joe making his mother cry by smoking a crazy Myanmar cigar filled with tobacco, banana, honey and star anise. For a grand total of about £11 we were able to hire a boat and driver who picked us up from our hotel and walked us down to the jetty to begin our trip. We were taken across the lake to a small village where we were shown the weaving process, silversmiths, tobacco rollers and pagodas. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the floating market as the holiday season meant normal activities were a little limited. The festivities did mean however that the pagodas were teeming with people chatting, eating and generally enjoying themselves. We noticed outside that ladies were trying to sell us little pieces of paper with what looked like gold on them, and once we entered the main hall itself, we could see why. In the centre of the room were about 4 large and irregular shiny golden balls. Men were crowded around and seemed to be rubbing them, at which point we realised these objects were actually layers and layers of gold leaf which had been individually added from the papers the ladies were selling outside! The only small problem with the day was a slight miscalculation on the water festival. Joe thought it was over, and it wasn't until small children were emptying whole buckets of water on our boat from a bridge that we realised it was not. The whole day was amazing, but would have been absolutely perfect had we not been repeatedly soaked to the skin and left shivering. Joe was rightly very concerned about his camera equipment and our phones so we had a few regrets about when we decided to head out on the lake. Long story short, this was the best day trip we've done so far, but don't go during Thingyan otherwise you may end up with a terrible cold and a broken camera.
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Hi! We're Alice and Joseph, currently on a year long RTW trip :) Archives
September 2018
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