Day 42: Inle Lake

-After a delicious breakfast at the hostel we met our guide for a day on the lake. Are mode of transport was purely by boat. Unfortunately the weather was quite overcast so we had to bundle up in raincoats. First we boated through the floating farming fields where they were growing the primary crop of the lake, tomatoes. We also went through their village, which was exactly like any small town, except there were streets of water instead of streets of pavement. We stopped at a weaving village to see a few women from the longneck tribe. It turns out they live in a remote area that you need a special pass to get to. A few women come the Inle each month, primarily for tourists.

Marco ready for a day on the boat:

One of the floating farming areas:

Some locals:

Harvesting some rice:

The longneck women:

-We stopped by some ancient pagodas to look around. However, we didn’t make the 1-mile walk to the pagodas due to the rain and the fact that four people have died on the way in the last month due to snakebites. That was a comforting tidbit of information. The temples were really beautiful though. I almost liked it more that they hadn’t been restored like the ones in Bagan.

The old temples:

Marco in his outfit:

-After stopping for lunch we went to visit a weaving village, a blacksmith, and carpenters. One of the coolest things we saw was how some locals make thread out of the lotus flower. They pull out some fibers from the stem and roll it to make thread.

The carpentry shop:

Unfortunately blurry, but what is used for lotus thread:

-Our last stop of the day was stopping on a pier where lots of the local students leave school. They all get to school via a carpool system, or boatpool, as we like to call it. The young kids were all just so adorable hiding away under umbrellas to avoid the rain. A few of them would wave and blow kisses.

After that it was back to relaxing at the hotel after a nice warm shower.

Where the students are picked up from school: