Myanmar: AROUND INLE LAKE

The four days we stayed in Inle Lake fortunately coincided with the day the floating market was active, it is held every five days. There were very few tourists when we visited this market, although I believe in peak season it can become very crowded. There is a lot of pressure to buy, but at no time did we experience any animosity or bad will for just looking. The bartering was done in a jovial manner and not buying didn't bring on long faces, as it often does in other tourist destinations throughout Asia. Most of our activities were done by boat as are most of the activities by the inhabitants of this lake area. "Quite amazing really, suburbia on water, Asian version of Venice.

Most of the houses on the lake are large two stories constructed with teak wood and on stilts. Initially I thought there must be a lot of large families to warrant such huge houses, but I guess if ones land area around the house is water a large house can be very practical.

Floating gardens - tomato growing, their main crop, at least for this time of year (September). The bamboo spikes are used to keep the islands from floating away.

There are a few very nice restaurant dotted around the lake, one we visited was called the Golden Kite, the owner has a real clay oven in which he makes very nice pizza with real mozzarella cheese and home grown basil, very impressive. Another restaurant we visited further up on the river on the way to Sankar. (more on that later). I was surprised to hear the owner of this restaurant speak faultless English. On asking him where he learnt English he told me that he was a taxidermist working for the government and had been sent to an English University many years ago to further his knowledge on taxidermy. Usually one has to organize the stop at this restaurant as he doesn't always have a huge supply of ingredients. Anyway being the vegetarian that I am his wife made me some great french fries.

The Golden Kite Restaurant - Great pizza's

Across the lake opposite the Golden Island Cottages Resort there is an amazing monastery called Jumping Cat Monastery, (not the real name). The monastery is around 150 years old and for me one of the highlights of Inle Lake, it is so, so beautiful. From the outside it is rather plain looking but on the inside it is amazing. The little house in the foreground is probably where the monks live. The main building is

Jumping Cat Monastery

Jumping cat monastery from front

To see the cats jumping one has to give a donation making sure the elderly monk who is sleeping peacefully nearby can hear you at the donation box, then he will lazily lift his arm out to ring a bell before going back to sleep, only then will the action to take place and you will then witness the cats that have been trained to jump through a hoop.

Getting ready for the big jump

Whaaa did it.

The main hall of the monastery has I believe 100 teak pillars, the central part of the monastery has a double row of carved Buddhas, many marble and some wood these are back to back, so it is like a big square in the centre that you can walk around.