Inle Lake

A long wooden walkway led us from our hotel restaurant to the lake, where we piled into a boat for a few hours of exploring. Our boat driver spoke absolutely no English, and our Burmese consisted of hello ('Mingalabar') and thank you ('Tchee Zoo Bar') so it was a bit difficult to figure out where he was taking us, and even more difficult to tell him where we wanted to go. But the price was right and the weather was gorgeous, and in the end, we ended up getting where we wanted to go. But really, we didn't know where we wanted to go anyway, so we just kind of went wherever we went.

It was pretty country


This picture is actually in the middle of the lake. The people that live and work on Inle lake have developed a very successful hydroponic agriculture method, whereby they use bamboo stakes to anchor floating gardens to the quite shallow lake bottom. The lake, while quite big, is largely carved up into canals between large 'fields' of floating farms and villages built in the middle of the lake, the houses on stilts. They don't want for electricity in the middle of the lake though, as the power lines in this picture show.

Another unique thing about Inle lake that you read about is the curious way that the people paddle their boats. They stand on the boat on one foot, hold the paddle in one hand, and wrap their second foot around the paddle, moving the paddle in concentric circles with their second foot. I'm not sure why they do this, except that it probably allows them a free hand to weed or harvest their floating gardens. I guess maybe I do know why they do it. I'm not sure why this kid was doing it, however, because he wasn't weeding or harvesting or anything. Lazy bum...


More people on the lake. The stilted houses are fenced in here, which I thought was a bit strange, fencing in a part of a lake.