Inle Boat Tour

I left on a rickety motorized longboat this morning for a tour of some of the sights along the lakeshore. The owner of the Teakwood Guesthouse sent her sixteen year-old daughter, Phwe, along with the boatman and I so she could practice her English. Our first stop was at an outdoor market. I wandered through hundreds of outdoor kiosks where I saw people selling vegetables, handmade crafts, prepared food, and even black-market gasoline (the gas prices in Myanmar are regulated by the junta). The whole thing reminded me a little bit of the farmer's market in Salt Lake, except that you can't buy gasoline from the vendors in Pioneer Park. Phwe pointed out different groups of people at the market and mentioned that they come from different ethnic groups in Myanmar. I took a few pictures of some playful kids next to some ox carts who were happy to pose for me. Phwe said that people from that ethnic group are known for their friendliness.
Our next few stops were at different workshops around the lake. All of the workshops had an attached gift shop and I'm sure that the Teakwood Guesthouse got a kickback for sending me to those places, but if that makes the tour cheaper then I really don't mind, and it was fun to tour the places anyway. The first stop was a weaving workshops. I walked past several Burmese ladies using wooden looms to produce clothing and decorative pieces made of silk and cotton. Whenever I tour manufacturing facilities in less developed countries I'm always reminded that their outdated processes are a huge reason why labor comes so cheap there. It might take one of those ladies two hours to weave enough material for a button-up silk shirt, but a facility in the United States, Japan, or Western Europe could make the same amount of material in seconds. On the international market the product is worth the same, regardless of whether it was made in seconds on state-of-the-art equipment or in hours by a lady operating a wooden loom.
At the next workshop a few young blacksmiths pounded metal blades out of red-hot steel. One blacksmith sat in the center and held the steel piece against an anvil. Then four other men gathered around him and pounded the thing with sledge hammers. The pounding went on until the steel had cooled and the blade was finished. Then the blacksmith set it aside and the process began again with a new piece of steel. I'm used to only seeing blacksmiths at Wheeler Farm or Colonial Williamsburg. It was interesting to see that there still are some real blacksmiths around, not just the ones who make tiny souvenir horseshoes.I had a quick lunch at a restaurant on stilts in the lake, visited the nearby Phaung Daw U Pagoda, and then was off in the boat to some ancient ruins called Indein. The boat weaved up a muddy tree-lined tributary until we reached a dock about a half-hour later. I walked about fifteen minutes up a concrete pathway until I came to a pagoda that was surrounded by the ancient ruins. Unfortunately the Myanmar government is in the process of restoring many of their ancient ruins and turning them into garish, modern-looking pieces lacking any tastefulness or appeal. About half of the structures at Indein have escaped the restorations. I skipped past all the restored structures and spent about an hour wandering through ancient, deteriorating stone and brick stupas. The place had the feel of an exotic lost civilization. Even though the pagoda and tacky new stupas were only a few hundred feet away, by turning away from them and wandering through the old overgrown ruins, I felt like I was walking through the set of an Indiana Jones movie.
One of the most famous sights at Inle Lake is the Nga Hpe Chaung Monestary, better known as the “Jumping Cat Monestary”. At the Jumping Cat Monestary the monks have used their free time to train cats to jump about four feet into the air to pass through tiny hoops that monks hold for them. I read about the Jumping Cat Monestary back home and was excited to come see the monks, the cats, and the jumping. Unfortunately I only got to see two of the three today. Phwe talked to one of the monks and learned that the cats are all sick and are in no condition to jump. I hung around for a few minutes, hoping that one of the cats would decide to jump just for kicks, but all I got to see was feeding time. I guess that seeing the monks and the cats isn't bad, but if I had to pick only two of the three to see, I would pick either the cats and jumping, or the monks and jumping.