On the Lake

Today we rented bicycles (for 1,000 kyat - or 90 US cents per day) and rode around town for the morning. I found it amazing that with as many tourists as this little town must see, the people still don't seem tired of us long-nosed foreign devils yet. We are greeted everywhere very warmly and with big smiles. The Burmese expression for hello is "Mingalaba", which I say HUNDREDS of times a day. It always brings a smile from the locals.

01-House on the Lake

Regarding the friendliness of the people, here are my thoughts: These people are by far the friendliest that I've ever encountered in all of my travels over the years. At the same time, this is one of the most isolated, least visited places on earth. I don't think that these two factors are unrelated. Nor do I wish to suggest that there is something different about these people that make them able to be so friendly. I think it simply comes down to the fact that friendliness is the natural state of people - until they get overrun by tourists and start seeing tourists as piggy banks rather than interesting visitors from afar.

02-Family returning home

The same thing happened in Thailand, where I currently make my home. When tourists first started coming here, the Thais were very welcoming and friendly and smiley. Now they see so many of us that they are for the most part sick of us. It is a normal progression of things. Even in friendly Myanmar, the only unfriendly people we ever encountered were the ones most intensely involved in tourism - usually the taxi drivers, for example. Certain taxi drivers see us tourists as sheep to be fleeced of our money without regard for giving us a corresponding service. We have money, they want it, and overcharging us on taxi rides is the next best thing to hitting us on the head with a stick and taking the money from us. The other unfriendly "person" in Myanmar is the government, who also doesn't miss an opportunity to extract as much money as possible from us for as little service in return. And as my friend Peter pointed out so many times on this trip, when the government cheats tourists, it sends a signal to other people that it's okay to cheat us. Fortunately, though, due to the unpopularity of the government, most of the people don't follow it's lead on this matter - at least not yet. So the result is that, at least for now, Myanmar has some of the friendliest people you are ever likely to encounter on this earth at the moment. And if you want to experience this friendliness, then you'd better go soon as the people will only become less friendly over time as tourism increases.

03-Lakeweed collector

Anyway, back to the lake: Most people spend the whole day on the lake, renting a boat and a driver to take them around to see a few famous sites and to visit (at the boatman's insistence) some shopping places from which he can get a commission on your purchases. Given my sensitivity to the sun, though, we decided that a couple of hours on the lake in the afternoon would be enough for us. So we booked a "sunset tour" and found a French couple in our hotel to share the boat (and expense) with us: 6,000 kyat, or just over five bucks for the four of us for a three hour tour.

As part of our lake tour we passed through a residential area of houses on stilts. (The water level of the lake varies according to the season.) Our boat guy also dropped us off at an isolated village on the edge of the lake. At first we were disappointed to be there because there didn't seem to be anything to do. But then we ended up enjoying being in a place that doesn't seem to see many tourists at all. We got in a conversation with a local school teacher who told us that his monthly salary is 10,000 kyat, which is 9 US dollars. That's per MONTH, not per HOUR! It's good to know what local people earn in order to gauge the prices that we should pay for things. For example, a vendor in the village tried to sell Peter a few bananas for 1,000 kyat. He quickly calculated that if the local school teacher earned 10,000 kyat a month, it was unlikely that a bunch of bananas could cost 1,000. Conclusion: This was a "special" price she was asking - and Peter rightly refused to pay it.

04-Happy to see yet another tourist today

Attached are some pictures of the lake and the little village that we visited on our afternoon tour, as well as the sunset from the lake that day.

05-From the village on the lake

06-Village street

07-Entrance to the village from the lake

08-Sunset on the Lake

09-Another shot of the sunset on Lake Inle

10-Fisherman on Lake Inle