PART 2
After an exquisite dinner of shan noodle soup for a budget breaking 50 cents we organized our trek through guesthouse Golden Lily to depart the next day with guide Rambo Singh and cook to make our way the fifty kms to Inle Lake. Our first destination was a nearby village home to one of the few remaining shamans where we would be having lunch. Walking alongside villages, across train tracks laid in 1908 and detouring around military bases we were immersed in the sights and sounds of rural Myanmar from the bullock drawn ploughs and water Buffalo guarded by village children to Burmese men playing cards and women carting loads of produce. Water Buffalo are generally a favourite of mine, immense and docile you can often wander close to a pond before realizing these great beasts are enjoying a bath however they are certainly not docile when your path lies between a tied up mother buffalo and a stubborn calf who has chosen to slumber on a patch of grass on the opposite side of the path. After attempts to encourage the baby buffalo to move closer to mum failed we heeded the warning of the mother buffalo as she threatening cocked her head in our direction displaying her rather impressive horns. Lunchtime arrived and we met the medicine man the last of a generation as his son has chosen not to continue the family tradition of being a shaman. I was brave enough to try some of the herbs designed to provide energy and the most incredible wild honey I have ever tasted.
We headed on towards our first nights’ accommodation in a small village where we were put up by a local family. Dinner proved to be an enormous variety of delicious dishes and aside from an ill-advised venture without a torch to try find the outdoor toilet the night passed peacefully and we soon set off the towards our second nights’ accommodation at a monastery. The second day past with more beautiful scenery of farmland and some interesting villages including the traditional PAAA people who wear turbans and clothing without stitches. Unfortunately as the day drew on the low cloud that had accompanied us from Kalaw spilled over into rain and most of the afternoon was spent trudging through red mud which built up on the sole of your shoe until you felt as if you were wearing stilettos and were forced to try to find some stick or rock with which to attempt to scrap it off to a more reasonable kitten heel. Our second night’s accommodation was a working monastery which was large and wooden with an unfortunate odor of cat urine. Again we gorged on a momentous meal prepared especially for us and watched as the villagers gathered to watch a movie on the 30cm screen television. The next morning we briefly spoke to the head monk before making our final trek to Inle lake where we arrived soaked as showers again found us. We made our way across the lake which was still shrouded in cloud from the showers keeping an eye out for the bizarre one legged row of the inle lake inhabitants, literally the boatman will stand at the rear of the boat and in a posture that would be sure to send me into the water immediately use his right leg to propel the oar forward and move the boat.
As my flight back to Rangoon was set for the next afternoon I had only the morning at the lake and so I organized myself an early morning tour which ended up being just me on the boat (which I suspect led many of the vendors to assume I was rich and the other tourists to assume I had no friends). The tour took me around the lake which houses a number of industry including silversmiths, hand weaving and cigarette making. The silversmith still used a hand propelled pump to heat the fire and thus melt the silver, whilst the wearing was all on looms operated by village women. The cigarettes which the vendor was most upset to find I didn’t smoke had differing flavours such as apple and aniseed and have such a thick covering as to require them to be pared with a knife to smoke. Finally we visited one of the more famous temples on the lake (of course this being Myanmar there were a number of Pagodas, temples and Stupas around) which is the jumping cat temple so named for its jumping cats. Imagining a temple overrun with cats in much the manner that the monkey temples of ubud are full of greedy monkeys I was at least in part correct. Whilst the cats do not leap up on one like the monkeys of ubud there are many of them lounging around or sleeping on sombreros whilst steadfastly ignoring my entreaties at friendship. The jumping cat temple name does not however come purely from the presence of the cats it comes from their performances. Yes these cats will jump up and through hoops for treats offered by handler (unless they are the brighter ones who simply sneak into the performance grab the treat and run out again as I witnessed one doing). The cat jumping performance is not entirely impressive but amusing nonetheless and the cats all seem well looked after which is a nice change from the strays of other places.
From Inle lake I headed back to Rangoon with the surprising comfortably Air Mandalay before flying back to Bangkok and onwards to Nepal.
