We shared a cab to the bus station outside Yangon that the travel agent had written down for me. When we arrived, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I thought it would either be
a simple bus stop on the side of the road, or a proper station with parking stalls and attendants. This was a chaotic dirt lot randomly lined with about a hundred buses, none having any kind of markings I could read. We had to depend on our taxi driver to drive up and down the rows looking for the bus that matched our tickets which were written only in Burmese.
Once we found it, we realized this wasn't a tourist bus. We were the lone Westerners. The driver was busy packing the seats in the back of the bus with cargo which eventually included a couple of motorcycles. The other passengers were friendly.
"Mingalaba!", they'd say. This is like "hello" in Burmese, but literally means "it's a blessing."
We noticed some clear plastic bags they provided at each seat. I wondered if these were for garbage? Motion sickness? Then it became crystal clear. They were for spitting out betel nut juice. Many Myanmar people chew betel nut, mostly men. It stains their teeth dark red, as if they had just feasted on a pomegranate and hadn't taken a sip of water yet. But their teeth stay like that all the time.
We headed out in the late afternoon for the overnight journey.
Even though Nyaungshwe, the main town on Inle Lake, is less than 400 miles from Yangon (about the distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles), the journey would take about fourteen hours.
The modern concrete highway leaving Yangon soon downgraded into a bumpy asphault road, and then further into windy rocky dirt roads.
The bus had to stop frequently to pay tolls to groups of people sitting by campfires. I'm not sure if these were hill tribes that had to be paid off for safe passage, or if it's just that each town paved their own road and so collected their own tolls. I saw regular people from villages working on paving roads all around Myanmar.
By the time we reached the peaks of the mountain range, the temperature had dropped further than I had planned for, maybe about 40F. Never did I imagine it would be that cold while I was still in Southeast Asia. I bundled up the best I could.
Around 5 am, the bus dropped us on the side of the highway and we took a taxi to Nyaungshwe.
We had to pay a $5 USD government fee to enter the lake area as tourists. During my trip, I have tried to minimize any spending that goes to the oppressive government whether directly or indirectly. But there are certain things like the Myanmar entry visa and fees like this that are tough to avoid.
Before I left Yangon, I had asked the hotel clerk if he could help me make a hotel reservation. He did make a half-hearted attempt, but wasn't able to get it done for me. So here I was again. Rolling into an unfamiliar town at 5:30 am with no reservation anywhere. I didn't know if any guesthouses would even have their doors open this early. I'd hate to have to wander the freezing cold streets for several hours waiting for signs of life.
Luckily we shared a cab with some Swiss folks who did have a reservation at Nanda Wunn Hotel, which had attendants waiting for their arrival. I asked if they had any other free rooms, and as luck would have it, they had one left. So I plopped down and slept a few more hours.
Later that day, once everyone was open for business, I made arrangements to move to Teakwood Inn, a slightly cheaper and better located family-operated guesthouse.
Outside Teakwood, I was approached by a sweet-natured, older man named Nah Se who asked me if I'd like to take a boat tour of the lake tomorrow. He said he could give me a longer tour and for less money than booking it through an agent.
I try whenever possible to spend money directly with individuals and family businesses. Also, having an opportunity to speak with him beforehand meant that I knew how his English was and knew I'd be able to ask questions along the way. So I committed to a trip the following day. Nah Se would be my private guide and his son would drive the boat.
I hadn't read all that much about Inle Lake before I came. In fact, most of what I knew about it came from a novel I had been reading, Saving Fish from Drowning, which is set here at the lake.
I knew that people lived "on" the lake and that there were some homes on stilts in the water. What I didn't realize until Nah Se toured me around, was that the local Intha people, don't just live around the lake. They have entire floating villages in the middle of the lake. Complete with streets and intersections, these villages are built on bamboo or teak posts in the relatively shallow water. Homes, stores, and farms are arranged together the same as they would be on land. Except they aren't. You have to take a canoe from place to place.
The floating farms are legendary. The farmers collect seaweed from the lake floor and create a type of floating soil that they plant crops in. Everything from tomatoes, to beans, to cauliflower, to corn. The variety of vegetables along with the fish from the lake make for some very tasty local cuisine.
As they harvest, they take their crops to markets, some floating with shoppers browsing from canoe to canoe, and some land-based which are a little easier to navigate. The land markets also allow participation by the hill tribes, such as the Pa-Oh, that grow other crops up in the surrounding mountains.
Nah Se proceeded to motor me around to some of the favorite spots with tourists.
If I had known beforehand that the "tour" was going to have scheduled stops at places where I could buy stuff and the boat driver may benefit somehow from stopping there, I would have been cynical about it. But as it turned out, even if that was true, the sights and the stops were all very interesting and enjoyable.
One stop was at a weaving shop in a floating village where they spun thread from local cotton, silk, and lotus root, and then dyed the thread and weaved lovely clothing using hand made wooden looms. It was really very charming and impressive.
Another stop was at another floating home where they were rolling cheroots, the local mini cigars that are very popular with the locals and visitors alike. They showed me how they made natural filters and glue to bind the wrapped leaves. They let me taste one of their mixtures of tobacco, banana, tamarind, and brown sugar. It was delicious, and so pleasant smoking it on the floating porch with my boat driver, that I couldn't help but buy a little hand carved wooden box of them.
After some other stops for lunch, and some mid-lake temples and monasteries, we called it a day.
Later after returning to town, I was wishing I had bought more of those lovely cheroots. I walked around town looking for more of those little wooden boxes of sweet cigars. But I couldn't find any.
When I ran into Nah Se on the road, I asked him if there is some place in town I can get more. He said. "No. Lake only."
I took that as a lesson. If you want it, buy it now. Because you may not have another opportunity.
The next day I was reading through the guidebook for other points of interest around the lake and I noticed there was a hot springs a few miles out of town. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a hard time saying no to naturally hot water. So I rented a bike and pedaled off into the countryside.
This was a great excuse to get out of the touristy area and see some everyday life out here.
I am hesitant to make the life of the local folks here sound too idilic. I know that these people struggle every day to make a living and stay out of the way of some of the very real political dangers around them.
But I have to say, riding through the country, the everyday life here seems peaceful and simple and downright pleasant. I know that's not true for everyone. But children laughing and playing in their school yard. A boy out for a walk with his flock of water buffalo. Kids flying kites after school.
It could be that the extra money this area receives from tourism just makes life a little easier around here than in other parts of Myanmar.
But it was nice to be able to look around and say, "everything is not broken here."
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