A boat trip on Inle lake is a popular jaunt, and having spent a day taking in different places on and around it, a really good experience. Its a large lake, and the houses on stilts are really impressive, although I can't imagine how they were constructed in the first place. As the expanse of water widened, despite the larger vehicles transporting people from one side to the other, as well as cargoes of vegetables, there were nonetheless groups of fishermen, on small boats that could only accommodate themselves, using small nets. Other fishermen too used sticks beaten against the water to entice fish to the area of their boat, as well as precariously balancing on one leg to steer their catch, whilst using quite small nets to ensnare their prey. Quite mesmerising in its own way. I got the impression that fishing had been done this way for a very long time.
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| Houses on stilts |
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| Houses on stits |
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| Collecting green algae from the lake |
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| Fishing on the lake |
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| Fishing on Lake Inle |
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| Fishing on Lake Inle |
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| Balletic fishing |
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| At the lake |
During the course of the day, I was introduced to family-run workshops on the lake producing silverware and fine cloth. These workshops have been in place for a very long time, and the work they produced was very intricate.
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| Smelting silver |
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| Making jewellery |
In addition to the jewellery workshop, I was taken to a small-scale family-run cloth-making business, established a couple of generations ago, that involves weaving lotus fibre into cloth, as well as using mainstream looms to manufacture a variety of scarves, lunzhis, handkerchiefs and other items of clothing using silk and cotton. It was a real eye-opener; I hadn't known that lotus roots could be used in that way, and that they would be flexible and resilient enough for making cloth. The cooperative I visited had an area on the lake that allowed the lotus plants to be protectively farmed to enable production.
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| Farming lotus plants |
It may seem as though this was purely an attempt to trade clothes to tourists, and of course there is a commercial element, but nonetheless there was no hard sell and the people I met were genuinely keen to explain the processes for dyeing and weaving on looms that were so reminiscent of those on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. It was quite charming to watch this group of older women so engaged communally in all of the different processes involved here. I got the sense of them really enjoying working together; it didn't seem to be a chore.
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| Spinning |
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| Spinning lotus threads |
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| Spinning silk for lunzhis |
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| Vivid lunzhi design on a loom |
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| Shan design cotton scarf |
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| Cotton weaving |
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| Time for lunch |
The women developed clothing designs based on traditional Shan state patterns. They were very brightly patterned and styled, and it was fascinating to find that the different colours were produced by boiling materials from the natural world found within their local environment.
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| Boiling silk before dyeing |
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| Turmeric for producing yellow |
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| Mango for producing red |
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| Conifers for producing brown |
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| Dried raspberries for making black |
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| Coconuts for making pink |
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| Safflower for producing golden yellow |
During the afternoon I also visited Inthein, a small village at one end of the lake down a narrow tributary and the site of a number of ruined stupas. Unfortunately there was little time to explore the area properly, and the poor condition of the stupas, there were some marvellous features to these ruins.
I also visited the Red Mountain winery in the late afternoon, a pleasant bicycle ride in the late afternoon, and a lovely place to watch the sunset.
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