The thing to do in Inle is get out on the lake. I’ve just arrived and don’t really know what that means yet, but I allow myself the luxury of sleeping in a bit my first day here. But the leisurely morning ends there: within about 6 minutes of finishing brekkie, I find myself on the back of the hotel lady’s motorcycle en route to a boat. I don’t yet know much about the boats here either, but she drops me at a property with a small cottage and a bigger shed and something that looks like an outhouse. There are some people milling about, and there are chickens and dogs wandering in the driveway, some motorbikes scattered around, and some chairs (occupied and not) around an unlit fire. A smiling guy comes out, and my hotel lady leaves me in his hands. He ushers me towards the back of the property, which I realise abuts a canal. It’s like Venice, if only for the gondola-like boats, but not at all otherwise, for all the dust and beeping and stray dogs about, a texture to the air which I can’t place, but breathes of wood smoke and fish sauce. Welcome to Inle Lake. You are not in Kansas anymore.
We head down the rickety ladder and my new guardian now hands me off to a smiling boat guy with tanakha’d cheeks, and we set off to see the lake on this long boat with a puttering engine, its long-tailed propeller designed to tackle the lilies and lotus greens that grow like weeds on the lake and its tributaries. I’m seated on a wooden chair that sits atop the wooden slats in the bottom of the boat. I’ve got a cusion, life preserver and umbrella (for sun or rain). We’re ready to go!
I’m still not at all clear on what we’re off to see, but my boat driver shuttles me down a mud-banked river along which he dodges the patches of green which seem to sprout up spontaneously. The river opens to a massive lake (about 50 sq mi), ringed with a low mountain range. It’s beautiful, this first glimpse of Inle, a morning layer of fog-smoke still burning off the lake’s surface.
We motor across the lake and into a neighbourhood of sorts, its houses and shops and restaurants on stilts. Inle Lake boasts a plethora of skilled craftspeople, and part of the tour is to their workshops. Our first stop is a silver-maker. I’m dropped off, given a cup of tea, and guided into the shop, where there’s an area in which a craftsman is showing how they make the silver here. I’m shown the stones they get the silver from, and then the mortar and pestle-type thing they use to stamp and mold the material into the jewelry I’m shown next. Then, I’m guided into a room bigger than the actual workshop, glass cases with rows and rows of jewelry that was clearly not handmade here, interspersed with some that may have been.
Next, we visit the cheroot makers, and I get out and watch as they demonstrate the cigar-making. After this, we navigate the watery streets (the neighbourhood is literally in the lake) and stop at a temple, thronging with boats and bustle. I have to pee.
I walk up into the melee, remove my shoes, and I’m immediately accosted by a woman who insists I buy offering flowers. I politely decline. She shoves the flowers in my face again. I decline again. This goes on for a couple of minutes until I find an opening and make my escape (sans fleurs). The temple is loud and crowded. The toilet is frightening. The tourists are pushy and rude, more into selfie-taking than worshipping. A shrine to what I wonder, as there are no monks anywhere to be seen.
I’m having a weird visceral reaction to this place, like I need to get out of here before it eats my soul. And I do, and then I explain to my boat driver that I need to see nature and culture and no more crowds. So after lunch, he motors us away from the crowds, down a series of green-lined rivulets, and to a market that appears to be bustling, but he points upwards and says go there. There looks to be another temple, this one with a zillion stupas, their gold and white and stone spires pointing to the heavens.
Between me and the temple is a covered stairway, lined with sellers of all manner of stuff – longyis and trinkets and jewelry and woven crafts. I’m relieved that while the waterfront is bustling, the market and the site is not. I am one of only a handful of people there, and I take my time walking up the hundreds of steps to the temple.
We’re at the Shwe Indein Pagoda, and I’m standing in the middle of what I realise is more like a village of centuries-old stupas, in various states of restoration. I spend nearly 2 hours wandering amongst the 1000+ structures here, awestruck at each turn. Some are meticulously restored, while some, gorgeous carvings and all, are tilting and overgrown, the jungle threatening to take them.
When I get up there, I am literally stupa-fied.
As I make my way down the hill again through the near-deserted market, I’m feeling better about this place. The energy here is so much different than that of the earlier pagoda, and it makes me very aware of the subtle cultural idiosyncrasies at play, not merely an east-west thing, but also region-to-region and temple-to-temple. Somewhere in the sub of my consciousness rings there is a place for everyone, and for everyone a place.
We visit a lotus weaving workshop next, where they demonstrate how the fibers from the lotus stem are woven to create a strong material, more precious than silk. And we visit the Jumping Cat Monastery, well-known for its trained cats. There are cats here, but I learn that they don’t jump anymore…it turns out that one of the practices the old monk didn’t pass on before he passed on was the training of the cats.
The day ends with a gorgeous sunset on the lake and large pot of Tom Yam soup. And, per the guesthouse’s suggestion, I reserve a boat for the following day to take me out to the lake’s farther reaches, to the town of Samkar.
We leave before dawn so I’m also treated to a sunrise over the lake. The journey takes about 3 hours, across Inle and down a river that is more marshy waterway than actual river. And while Inle lake is known for its oodles of pagodas and temples, it’s also famed for its fishermen. These iconic symbols of Burma’s Shan State go out on the lake every morning, doing their traditional dance: one leg wrapped around the oar, the other maneuvering their wooden skiff (a manual version of what we’re on), while his hands work the basket-like net. I’m already feeling a little hustled and shuttled like a tourist from the prior day (don’t they know I want an authentic experience rather than pay-per-view??), so I skeptically wonder if this, too, is a show for the tourists (and do I exit through the gift shop?).
But I’m drawn in by the nature of this longer journey…lush terrain lines different parts of the lake, and the greenery narrows around our long and narrow boat. I’m in bird-watching mode, spotting egrets and herons and cranes and a variety of other water birds as we navigate through the marshy lotus patches. These wetlands morph into fields and it’s sometimes hard to determine where the wet- ends and the -lands begin. It’s like two enmeshed cultures: land and water. Like a lotus, they need to find stability and nourishment in the solid bits, make peace with the water for equanimity and balance, and look skyward for wisdom and direction.
Because I opted to journey a bit off the beaten path today, I missed the floating market. And also the 5-day market. But we visited a sake-maker (with samples!) and some stunning pagodas along the way; and at most of them, I was the only one there. So the reward for the long, cold ride this day wasn’t that I got to see what everyone else does at Inle Lake, it was that I got to experience the stillness and the serenity of these sites; the only sound at times, the bells atop the crowns of the stupas, tinkling in the light breeze.
I won’t have a physical souvenir of these places, and I don’t know the names of most of them*, but the reflection in the mirror-like water, the bells in the air, and the scent of incense wafting from the altars are all the keepsakes I need.
My days at Inle Lake close with a 3-hour bicycle ride around town. Along the way, I was given a thumbs-up and blessed by a near-toothless monk, and had some of the best Indian food I’ve ever eaten outside of Rajasthan. In Inle, I got rained on. I experienced world-class Burmese smiles and warmth and genuineness. I saw some surreal temples. I (re-)learnt that sometimes the best way to deal with an experience that isn’t for me is just to leave: there are mobs of people enjoying it whether I’m there or not. Once I take myself out of the equation, it just IS.
On the way back to the airport, the taxi passed the spot my other taxi driver crashed only a few days before, and I briefly wondered if I were a jumping cat, how many lives would I have used up thus far?
But for now, it’s onwards to Bagan and to one of the great architectural wonders of this world!
*In Samkar, I saw the Tha Kaung Mway Taw, Taung Tho and Samkar pagodas, plus a little ancient site sitting below a “newer” pagoda (here newer is a relative term; many of the temples here are over 1000 years old).
Read more of these adventures in Southeast Asia: [Part I: Bangkok] [Part II: Diving in the Mergui Archipelago] [Part III: Back on Land] [Part IV: Yangon]