Inle Lake - Notes from Dad

My parents are having a good time together, and this time, my dad wrote. They went away for the weekend to another place called Inle Lake, and as you can tell from this description, it sounds like an unusual place to visit, and live.

This weekend we went to Inle Lake. Our luck was very good, and it did not rain – unusual for the monsoon season. Inle is a very strange place. The physical setting resembles Lake Tahoe in some ways – a big lake about 20 miles long bordered on two sides with mountains. The mountains were brilliantly green, interspersed with the darker green of pine trees near the top.

The lake itself is very shallow, maybe 20 feet at most, with large parts of it covered by water hyacinths and other tall grasses. Around all the edges are swamps with thousand of canals and creeks running into the main body of water. The villages all around the lake are built on stilts and everyone goes around on boats – it’s impossible to walk: not enough dry ground. They even raise pigs in little cages on stilts. Most remarkable are the floating gardens. The farmers raise vegetables – mostly tomatoes – floating gardens. There is not enough soil for them to walk on the planted areas, so they plant and harvest the crops from small canoes that ply up and down the canals. Two rows of tomatoes, about four feet wide, are separated from the next two rows by a four-foot-wide canal. They harvest lakeweed from the floor of the main lake and then use it in the gardens as fertilizer. Each fisherman in the area is responsible to the government for removing one basket of water hyacinth a day from the lake to keep it from being overrun like Caddo Lake. (neighborsgrrl's note: caddo lake is the only non-man-made lake in Texas, there was a recent article on the front page of the NY Times. It's a spooky place, with cypress trees and moss hanging down, and alligators in the water)

Our hotel was also quite beautiful, though it didn’t have airconditioning or a pool or tv. The airconditioning wasn’t necessary since Inle is 3000 feet above sea-level and therefore fairly cool. The grounds of the hotel were beautifully landscaped with two large lotus ponds and lots of other flowers. Our cabin was right on the water with big picture windows looking out over one of the inlets. We were surrounded by water and tall grasses and rice paddy fields on the other side, with tall mountains behind that.

The second day we traveled up a small, placid river about six miles to the town of Indain. Indain is the site of a famous Shan temple with a group of ruined Indian-style temples built in the 16-17th centuries. The Shan don’t believe in restoring temples. They just build new ones in new places. So these old ruins were being taken over by the jungle with Banyan trees and other plants growing right down through the ancient carvings.

The only negative part about the trip was the flight back. These planes spend ever day flying between Rangoon, Bagan, Mandalay and Inle. At each place they stop for about 25 minutes, and each time they turn off the airconditioning, which means it gets extremely hot in the plane. The poor stewards and stewardesses were just wiping the sweat off their brows. Despite this, however, the trip was a great success.

more on Yangoon (Rangoon)

Excerpts from the intrepid correspondent, aka Mom, in far off Burma, or as they call it, Myanmar.

This is the first time I venture out by myself. I am at cyber world, next to movie house showing The Departed, Pirate of Caribean (?), Spider Man 3. I took a taxi to downtown. It was pouring rain and I was wet from sitting (swinging) inside the cab. I asked to be taken to a small pagoda/temple/paya. Not to go in, just as a stopping point. Then I asked some Spanish people for a certain street. I walked straight into massive humanity. It turns out I am in the middle of Indian interest. There is a Bangali Sunni Central Mosque, some other Jami mosque. It is mosque after mosque after mosque, different sects. Only men are selling things.

If there is one surprise of Burma it is that there is no easy place to walk. Sidewalks are only one person width, along with sewage, pot holes, loose stone slates, burning stoves and oil. There are always something being deep fried, including some small bird, butterfly cut, with head and feet standing straight like a flying bat. Beetlenut sellers wearing portable stand displaying varieties of flavor. Noodles and noodles and cuts of fruit. And it's raining. I was so afraid that I might twist my feet in some sewage holes and break my ankles, while fighting with my umbrella against traffic. People stop their cars or back up while you are crossing, or they will change tires in the middle of crooked lane. Young men hustle for customers to their awful pickup trucks/buses, then there are "city buses" written in Chinese.

I believe the transportation modes are crappier than the Brasilia I knew. I rode buses in Brasil , but I'll never do it here. People told me it takes four hours to ride 20m miles. There are a few gas stations. The embassy owns one. Unheard of. Because there is gas ration. So you'll see young men holding plastic buckets/ containers with sprout on the street. They are selling black market gas/oil. Cheaper too. Drivers will fill up a few gallons, enough to get to street sale individuals. Situation is so comical here. It's dictatorship. However you can't (see) any government nor govt officials anywhere. They go out of the way to avoid you, hiding in new capital. But somehow decrees will be sent out to tell you new rules or revised old rules.

Universities are empty because the big men do not want young people congregate in one place. So professors hand out reading lists and books on first day. Students study on their own (unless they pay extra for private tutorials). One week before exams they go to school and professors give them question sheets to be expected during exams, along with answers! So everyone passes and everyone graduates.

dispatches from Yangoon with Neighborsmama

As some of you know, my dad is on a temporary assignment in Burma, so my mom has just gotten there. I always enjoy her descriptions of places to visit and thought you might enjoy reading this. I should add that communication to that country is pretty tough. It costs about $5 a minute to call there. And my dad said that sometimes the rain knocks out all communication.

I am in Yangoon. The place is a little strange, starting from the airport and immigration. All the airport employees wear kind of white button down shirts, half untucked, long pants and flipflops. Or blue tops and pants (like garage repair men), baseball caps (no logo), and flipflops. I fully expect them to come fix my motor cycles and sell me beetle nuts as well. In fact, even the flipflops are optional, they go barefoot indoor. This includes my fellow passengers, they took off shoes, as soon as they sat down at the waiting/departure room. Their carry on suitcases are interesting to look at. Most of us had to open our carryons, including me, with the Jongs. (neighborsgrrl's note: jongs are sticky rice stuffed with goodies, like mungbeans, wrapped in banana leaf and steamed. We eat them for Dragon Boat Festival. My mom was bringing some homemade ones over from Hong Kong for my dad to enjoy).

Several people's suitcases had nothing but fruits, pkgs of strawberries, plums, peaches, nectarines. Some had nothings but chocolates and candies. One had all the sandwiches bought from Changi airport (in Singapore). Do they know something I don't know? And then the transportation modes. One pickup truck looks like a school bus, with kids hanging out everywhere. Two or three standing up on steps outside, some hanging out sideway. My god. They wear shirts and long wraps and flipflops and school bags. Baba said that one was not even considered packed.

I went swimming as soon as I arrived yesterday, just to clear my head. Then we had dinner at the secretary's house with her mother, aunt, cousins, and a friend who is chief of Burmese section BBC in London. It was a good dinner. They are Shan people originally, one cousin is half Chinese (father from Yunan). I found out being minority, such as Chinese and Indian, is no good in Burma. You have to hide the fact and change name.

...We are now in Baba's office and we'll go a French restaurant near by for lunch. The cook/house keeper is Maureen. She's Burmese. Where did she get the name I don't know. I just send her away to buy more vegetables and fruit and some fish and tofu. She was going to cook mutton for tonight. Awww. (neighborsgrrl note: my mother hates mutton, and beef)

The temperature here in not as high as DC or HK. A surprise. But very humid. It rains buckets in the afternoon, like yesterday at 4pm.