Adventures with Julia

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Inle Princess Resort, Lake Inle, Burma

We met at the jetty at 8am and Ken gave us a brief overview of the lake and our plans for the day.  The lake, which is actually a man made reservoir, is 13.5 miles long and 7.5 mile wide, but up close it is hard to tell where the lake ends and the marshes begin.  The surface area is 45 square miles.  However, the average depth is only 7 feet.  It is the second largest lake in the country.   The shape is a bit like the shape of the country itself or a giant sperm with a very long tail at the south end where a dam was built in 1963 to create a reservoir and hydroelectric power plant. The dam and hydroelectric plant, according to Ken, were given by the Japanese as war compensation to the Burmese.  The power plant worked for many years but eventually deteriorated due to lack of maintenance and spare parts.  The new government is supposedly looking into improving the plant as electricity in the area has become spotty and people are complaining.

The people displaced by the rising water stayed in the area, built stilt villages and took up farming on the lake.  Floating gardens and stilt villages are everywhere.  Water hyacinths grow in single bulbs and in dense carpets.  Farmers clump them together to create a floating base.  Over the mat of hyacinths is added straw and nutrient rich mud.  Bamboo poles are run through the mass and into the ground to anchor the “garden”.  Then vegetables are planted and, voila, you have a hydroponic garden.

We also learned that until 1975, deceased villagers were buried in the lake with large stones to hold down the bodies.   The government banned the practice and now cremation is the law.   That sounds like at least one good thing the government did.

Ken also told us to watch for the unusual manner in which boatmen row.  They stand on one leg and use the other to propel the paddle through the water, while using the arm on the same side to steady the oar handle.  The motion moves the boat through the water at a greater speed than just paddling.  The maneuver somehow manages to keep the boat going straight as well.

As soon as we climbed into the boats, there was a young man demonstrating the maneuver, as motors are not allowed near the resort.  He paddled us out to a gatehouse jetty, where he jumped off and our boatman fired up the engine.   During the next two days we saw many young men paddling their boats in this manner.   As much balance, coordination and strength that must be required, I was not surprised that we did not see old men or women doing it.

Once out in the main part of the lake, which, at an elevation of 2,7oo feet, provides cool air in the morning and burning sunshine during the day, we headed south.  After an hour we were near the southern end of the fat part of the lake and made a bathroom stop at a small stilt hotel with a few vendors.  Here Mark bought some big baggy pants to wear instead of the longhi, which he has trouble keeping on.  Back in the boats, we motored another 2 hours south.  The sun was very hot and most of the group opted to use the umbrellas provided by the boatmen.   We must have been close to the end of the lake when we stopped a very small and seldom visited village with old, dilapidated stupas and a very small monastery.   It is called Sagar and has about 400 people in the community.  The place was deserted during the daytime, except for a handful of monks who were just sitting down to have their lunch.  A couple of stupas had been restored, but most were in a very dilapidated and precarious condition, due to the rise and fall of the water level since they were built in the late 1800 hundreds.

We walked around a bit, but I did not think the 3-hour ride was worth the trouble to see the village.  From there we headed back north a short distance to an interesting temple complex where Ken and Davies had arranged a catered lunch for us right on the edge of the platform.  The whole setting was very exotic and Asian and we all felt special.  Lunch was another super Burmese meal.  Afterward, we walked around and found several interesting and different statues including a reclining Buddha and a temple that looked very much like it could have been in Anchor Wat.  Before returning to our resort, we stopped at a silk and lotus-weaving factory on stilts in the middle of the lake.  There were at least 4 2-story buildings full of ladies working away at their looms.  Most interesting was watching how thread is teased from lotus stems, twirled together with other lotus fibers and then woven into cloth.   The other stop was at a cheroot factory where the thin cigars are made from bits of chopped tobacco blended with spices and rolled, together with a paper filter, in a tobacco leaf.   Where the silk was popular with the ladies, the men bought up the cigars.   Not being interested in either, I was glad to finally get back to the resort and take a shower.   It had been a long hot day and I was feeling sun baked in spite of a thick layer of sunscreen.

At dinner we learned that it was Jane’s birthday so we all sang for her and ATJ bought her a dark chocolate cake for all of us to share.   I have given up trying to send messages from our resort, so all I could do is write, which I did until bedtime.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Mandalay Hill Resort Hotel, Mandalay, Burma

Up at 5am again and packed for our early departure from the group.  While getting ready, I realized that I had forgotten to pack 12-days worth of my hypothyroid pills.  At breakfast I asked Ruth, the MD, if she thought I could go that long without any serious problems and she said it was not a good idea and to ask around to see if anyone in the group might use Synthroid and have some extras.  I did and was pleased that Stacy, Claudia and Elinor stepped forward with two pills each for me.  By taking one every other day I will manage until I get home.   Many thanks to the three ladies for being so generous with their own medications.

Ken had us all out at 6:30am and back on the boats for a mad dash directly across the lake to the annual festival called Phaung daw U, which means “Buddha on a barge”.   Once a year for three weeks a special gold covered Buddha is brought out of its temple, placed on a barge and moved to five other temples, one temple every so many days.    This was the biggest day of the long event as over 30 rowing boats were lined together one by one to pull the barge.   Each rowing boat was over 100 feet long and was full of young men on each side of the boat doing the paddling maneuver I told you about.  In the middle of each boat were a few men making rhythmic noises for the rowers to keep time.  Each boat was decorated in a different color theme with the boatmen wearing the same colored costume and using the same colored paddles.   Flowers, palm fronds, colorful umbrellas and shinny cellophane were liberally used as well.  Clearly, each was trying to outdo the others, and some were quite successful.

We arrived shortly before the procession was to start and motored our way from the front boats all the way to the barge along with many other spectator boats.  Thousands of people were on the water to see the procession and participate in the festival.   All the tourists staying on the lake turned out as well.   By the time we got to the Buddha barge, the procession was getting underway with thousands of boatmen paddling away to move the barge.   We fell into line behind the barge and followed it along with hundreds of other boats all jostling for a better position.  It was like a floating party with people chatting across boats rubbing against each other.   We smiled, waved, blew the children kisses, shouted “Ming a la bar“ and took lots of photos.  It was a super festival, even if we only participated in a small bit of it.  All too soon our boatman pealed away when an opening appeared in the crush of boats and away we went heading south again to visit yet another monastery.

This one is called Ngaphekyuang Monastery.  It is special for its beautifully carved Shan Buddha statues, which were made between 1860 and 1890.   Ken, being Shan, is quite proud of them as they all have younger, thinner faces that the usual Buddha statues.  The monastery, also on stilts has a huge open space for worshipers and visitors to share.  Attached to it is another building that houses several vendors selling wares to tourists.  Finally, I caved in and bought a longhi and top to wear during the rest of our trip.    It was good to see the inside of this building as we have passed many large two story houses that all look open from the water and it turns out they are wide open.  Ken says only one family will own a house, but all the members of that family will live in it, sleeping together upstairs and living together downstairs.  No privacy at all that I can see.  Even on the lake there is a pecking order as there are very nice and very poor looking houses in each stilt village.

We stopped at the Golden Kite, a large stilt restaurant, for an early lunch.  I think Ken timed it so we could have lunch with the group before our departure.  Finally, at 12:30 we said our farewells to everyone and got into a separate boat Ken arranged just for us.  Our bags were already loaded into it and off we went, waving and blowing kisses.   I will actually miss this group of folk.  We have had a lot of fun together.

The ride to the town of Lake Inle and the jetty took 50 minutes with the boatman going full tilt on the motor.  A van was waiting for us at the jetty and off it went for another hour’s drive to the Heho airport, which is at 3,858 feet or a thousand feet higher and cooler than the lake.     Our flight was moved up 30 minutes, so we got an earlier departure than we expected and landed at Mandalay at 4pm after a 25-minute flight.   Our transportation was waiting even though we were early.   The last leg took an hour due to commute traffic and the fact that the hotel is in the heart of the city.   We were finally in our room at 5:30.   Having remembered the lovely pool at this hotel, we wasted no time getting into it again.    Dinner at the hotel was fine with us and then writing so I can send a few posts while we have a good Wi Fi connection.

Not sure if I will have any ability to send messages from the far north and the far west or not, but I suspect this might be it until we get out of Burma and back to Bangkok and Hong Kong.  No matter what, I will try to continue writing.

Sure hope you are and remain well.  It has been sad for us to learn that two people we knew in Grass Valley have died since we left home.   We have also heard that the weather there has turned.  We have not seen any rain on this whole trip beyond a couple of insignificant sprinkles.  Cool and wet actually sounds good from here.

Will send more as soon as possible.

With much love, Julia