MYANMAR PART 3

OUR JOURNEY TO INLE LAKE

The following morning, we flew from Bagan to HeHo – the closest airport to Inle Lake – where once again we were met by another amazing young guide called Phoe Lone or Paulo to us and a driver. We were going to be in this area for 3 days.

Although airports in Myanmar are a little behind their western world counterparts they are still extremely efficient. There are no announcements, no rows of computerised desks for check in, no conveyor belts to carry your baggage off into the Neverland…………just “stickers”. Everyone is met at the door by enthusiastic young men who take your bags which they weigh on a standalone machine. With the said young men still in tow you are then directed to a desk where you are given a sticker to put on your body  denoting which airline you are booked with. After lots of furious writing on a piece of paper behind the desk by people who are not even in uniform the young men take your now labelled bags and disappear. You go through “security” into a holding room where there are many people waiting and all with varying, patterned stickers. Eventually the doors to the tarmac open and someone with a walkie talkie, supposedly from your airline, stands in the doorway. When you see local people with the exact same sticker as you heading through that door………yes, you follow!!!!! Someone will eventually put you right if you are wrong. The strangest thing though is this……….it works and it works well. The airports are small, simple and quite ramshackle but often the planes leave before time if all the passengers are accounted for in the holding room and your bags are always at your destination.

Our first night was to be spent in Kalaw as we made our way to Inle Lake. This was quite a long car ride but we stopped off in beautiful Pindaya in the Taunggyi District of the Shan State, to do some sightseeing along the way. As we drove to Pindaya we commented how red and fertile the soil looked and were not surprised to be told by Paulo that the Shan State of Myanmar, which we were now in, was the “Vegetable/fruit Basket” of Myanmar. He was not wrong either – every available space was dedicated to producing good quality, clean food. Fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit were in abundance and we were happy.

As we travelled from HeHo to Pindaya one of our first photographs is of a small scooter-type bike with 4 full sized mattresses loaded on the back. We were forced to follow this for some time as his load was so wide and his route so wobbly it was totally unsafe to overtake.

On the way, our guide stopped to show us some huge, knobbly crackers – a bit like thick poppadum – being made and he bought a couple of bags of them for us to snack on in the car. Each package contained 4 of these delicious treats, wrapped in newspaper!!!, apparently, they are only made in this one particular village just outside Pindaya and they are rather yummy.

Next stop the broommaker. I think I have said before that everyone carves out a living somehow in Myanmar however small it may be. Some crafts are handed down from generation to generation but everyone does something. Also, every single thing grown has a complete use and is used completely. So too the broom maker, his father and his sons. The very soft fronds, I believe, come from the pampas like flowers on the top of their maze/corn. They are flatly bound together with rattan, long at one end and shorter at the other. They are then secured by some dyed natural fibre to thin strips of bamboo which form the handle. Both the brooms and the makers are very efficient. They work hard and fast and it costs them little or nothing for the raw materials they gather from the natural world around them……..but they also sell them for peanuts making them cheap for locals to buy in the markets. The circle starts and ends and everyone is happy.

The same applies to the bamboo hats we saw being made. The farmers use them to protect their heads from the sun whilst working in the fields. All materials come from the countryside around them and they are made very quickly. Each person in the family has a specific job to do in the assembly line and voila…. a bamboo hat is born!!!!!! The skill is passed on to future generations which guarantees its survival.

Lunch was our next stop at a restaurant by the picturesque Pone Taloke Lake. Once again, the food was incredible and plentiful but our eye was caught by a local, older woman walking around the lakeside, we assume, on her way home from the close-by market. Remember this for the future folks because if you buy a nice hand of pristine bananas and you wish to get them home unbruised we have the answer. You place the hand of bananas, with the stalk part to the front, on the top of your head – the bananas fan out behind. Now this is very handy because, not only do they also act as a sunhat but, it speeds up the ripening process. This lady’s bananas were green!!!!! Very cool.

After lunch, it was a visit to the highlight of Pindaya – the natural, limestone caves where, at the last count, over 8094 buddha statues are housed in tiny, naturally occurring chambers in the cave walls. This collection was started in the 11^th century and is a Buddhist Pilgrimage site.  It was like a maze inside but absolutely magical. Paulo encouraged us to crawl into a very small, private, meditation chamber where we talked about Buddhism and what it means to him, his family and the Burmese people in general. It gave us a basic but honest view of Buddhism and also an understanding of what makes this way of life is so very important to them.  This place had such a nice feeling to it and the combination of the caves, which are awesome in themselves, the Buddhas made of all different kinds of materials and the nooks and corners of the winding cavern made it very easy to stay too long here. There are over 30 Buddhas showing all the different Mudra of Buddha; there is a place where a stalactite is dripping - to touch this is to be blessed; another Buddha is where you go to be healed – you touch the corresponding part on the Buddha which is ailing you and healing takes place; there is a Buddha you touch if you want a boy child and another a girl child. On the day we went it was very quiet, peaceful and inspiring.

Outside the cave rises the Shwe Oo Min Pagoda guarded by the blue eyed, Giant spider and the handsome Prince who, legend says, killed it with his bow and arrow freeing the 7 virgins trapped in its web and allowing people to enter the cave. The surrounding views from this mountainside are, once again, breath-taking. Red, covered walkways wind down and around the mountain taking you to other Pagoda - pristine white and gold in the sunshine. Everywhere you look there are clusters of these beautiful monuments.

Our next stop was to watch bamboo paper being hand crafted. Such a simple method of making beautifully strong paper – all it takes is time and patience of which they have heaps – and the paper, some peppered with colourful flowers, is extremely strong and very pretty. From making the paper they then fashion note books, wrapping paper and the ultimate……..their famous umbrellas. Umbrella making was our next jaw dropping experience. Once again everything is made from materials found around them in nature and to watch a man make a spring-loaded umbrella handle from two pieces of bamboo just blew us away. (So much so I asked him to please show me again!!!!) To make the cluster at the top for the spindles to go into took him three minute max?????? How can they do this? They are clever, resourceful, waste NOTHING, utilise everything and are above all HAPPY.

The Mighty Banyan Tree was our next stop. This tree is so huge all its limbs are having to be supported and I cannot remember just how old it is, only that it is very sacred and just wonderful to be underneath it looking up to the sky. Paulo bought us 3 huge Burmese avocados here which I was to dine out on for days as they are not a favourite of Garys.

Tired and travel weary we finally arrived at our Kalaw hotel and after a tasty, shared, Indian meal that we stumbled across in the township and a hot shower…… we slept like babies.

The following morning, we had a quick look around Kalaw. This little town was inhabited by the British and there are still some examples of British architecture standing proud. For example, the Railway Station where the train to Yangon arrives once a day and then comes back from Yangon the following day. The train is old and slow and takes hours and hours to reach its destination but it still all works and lots of cargo is moved this way as long as there is no urgency of course.

There is a grand hotel high on the hillside overlooking Kalaw which is another example of Tudor architecture left from the British Colonial era and here there is a “Lovers Tree” which is more than 100 years old. It is one type of tree growing inside another as though in a loving embrace. From here we saw and heard, the whistle screaming, the old puffing steam train coming up the hill and round the bend. Fantastic to see.

Kalaw is 1320m above sea level and is much cooler than other places we had been in Myanmar. We took a visit to the bustling, colourful market where fresh food, spices, tofu, greens, beans and rice were in abundance. Meat, chicken and fish, of all shapes and sizes - dried or fresh - was so cheap and plentiful. Absolutely nobody should go hungry in this land of plenty.

And flowers!!!!!!! Everywhere flowers – truckloads of them, stalls full of them, motor scooters laden with them on the way to the market, hawkers selling them at intersections, locals with armfuls of them, pagodas temples and monasteries full of them and oh so very inexpensive. Such a sight.

Seeing all we could see in Kalaw we headed to Inlay Lake via a trading merchant town which I unfortunately cannot remember the name of. Paulo does not usually take tourists here but knew we would be interested in wandering around with the local people – we were definitely a spectacle. This town is where every farmer brings his produce to sell in bulk to the traders who subsequently distribute it throughout Myanmar – remember the Shan State is the Vegetable basket of Myanmar. Cauliflower, cabbage, ginger, garlic, onions, potatoes, carrots – in fact every vegetable you could possibly think of – is brought here by the farmers, bought from the farmers for a pittance by the rich traders, bagged by women and young men, loaded into huge trucks and resold elsewhere in Myanmar. Full grown cows singularly wandered the streets as if they owned the town and “Chinese buffalo” (a big 35hp open diesel engine bolted onto a truck chassis) chugged up and down the streets distributing the buyers’ bargains. It was exciting to be part of this and although it felt, and looked, very shambolic and “wild west” to us, it obviously works for them.

To top this, we went to a “cattle market” which means - a lot of cows, some past their use by dates and others very young and untrained, tethered in a large paddock with lots of men, young middle-aged and old, sitting in a circle haggling loudly over prices. Every now and then one would jump up, money would change hands and the joyful new owner would walk off with his brand new purchase or purchases. Other cows lived to walk home and come back another day!!!!! Once again, we were lucky to be part of this.

And so, our journey to Inle Lake was almost complete but we had just one more stop -  a Monastery high on the hilltop near Paulos home village. Here we were offered green tea and snacks by the nuns and we sat cross legged on the floor enjoying this refreshment.

As we travelled by car for the last hour or so we saw Poinsettias growing wild throughout the rich countryside, which reminded us of Christmas at home, and toothless ladies in bright orange turban-styled traditional headdress selling their wares on the side of the road. Once again, we were tired and our hotel was like the proverbial oasis in the desert. Welcoming, clean and comfortable.

Tomorrow will be another day.