Dispatch: Inle Lake, Myanmar

by James Ruggia
Last updated: 12:59 PM ET, Fri October 24, 2014

It's a short flight of about 90 minutes from Yangon to Inle Lake and it's worth a window seat. Myanmar is a predominantly rural country, but "rural" doesn't really do it justice. Even from the air you can see that the black asphalted roads are few, though red dirt roads and paths are many. The hills are patched with different crops in variegated greens that run from kelly to a fierce near yellow.

Agriculture doesn't stop at lands end in this part of Myanmar - it extends onto the many lakes that gather in the valleys between the mountains. Despite the increase in tourism to the Burmese state of Shan, due mostly to Inle Lake, this is remote country especially in the in-between places, where the few roads you see are unpaved.

From the small airport to the lake is only a few miles, but the roads made it a long but interesting journey as it passed through a couple of cattle-clogged roads and busy farm towns where ethnic minorities could still be spotted in the crowds wearing tribal clothes and colors. Traditional Shan women wrap their heads in the colorful textiles that the region is famous for.

Though Myanmar is still a backpacker's pioneer destination, I am fortunate to be travelling here with Abercrombie & Kent. Throughout my time here, I've been moving above the fray with my luggage arriving in my room as I imbibe the welcome cocktail and cool my brow with the cold towels given out by wait staff in the lobby.

Even when our party of hosted travel writers arrived at the lake dock all crowded with the lake's signature long thin boats (about 30 feet) and their coughing motors, we found a trio of nicely painted A&K craft with cushioned seats.

Inle Lake uses a few varieties of boats: there are the small flat dinghies, rather like floating skate boards, that the acrobatic fishermen use and then there are the long sleek transit boats used for moving goods and people. These boats are similar to the long thin cigarette boats that work up and down Bangkok's, Chao Phraya River. The propellers are raised and lowered by the pilots and the engines accelerate from a low gurgling whoof, whoof, whoof to a high piercing roar.

Though that roar obliterates all conversation, it's not long before it drifts into the background, silenced as it were, by the beauty of the lake. Though these noisy boats cut a loud gash through the water, beyond the wake and the boat's turgid passage the waters are so placid that even from within that roar you begin to acclimate to the serenity and note the almost mirror perfect detail of the Montana-like Big Sky over the lake with its galleons of cumulus cloud scuttling their hulls on the surrounding mist-draped mountains.

And there are the fishermen working their nets, the cormorants lifting off the lake into flight, the far off shine of golden stupas peeking up through the forests, the stilted overwater villages and the floating gardens that sustain them.

Earth and water seem to have worked out a special arrangement here, even out on the lake's wide open center, huge bundles of vegetation float like islands broken off from the shore, some crested with flowers and some with resting birds. As the boat's wake hits these islands they roll in waves of vegetation of their own.

The lake, which is losing water at an alarming rate thanks to the deforestation of the surrounding teak forests and climate change, is still about 13 miles long and four miles wide. It's big enough to support more than 80,000 fisherman and lake farmers in some 30 villages. Like a freshwater lagoon, the lake is shallow (between 15 to 20 feet) so farmers can shove long stilts into the lake bottom that hold their homes above the water.

These homes gather into villages and the villages are surrounded by floating rows of vegetable gardens, primarily tomatoes. Bamboo stilts sustain boxes of lake sedge beneath the lake surface. These unseen boxes are generally about 4 feet wide and 100 feet long. Inside the boxes the farmers plant their crops and then the vegetation just seems to gather all around them winding vines and bundles of leaves and lilies. These rows are separated by narrow canals that allow farmers to harvest from their flat fronted dinghies.

Further out in the lake, solitary fishermen work their nets, their oars and their large bamboo fish traps from these tiny dinghies, six to eight feet long. These craft lie almost as low to the surface as a floating board might. These fishermen, raised from childhood on the lake, are almost completely at one with these craft that they can move and manipulate with breathtaking dexterity.

[BLURB]These fishermen, raised from childhood on the lake, are almost completely at one with these craft that they can move and manipulate with breathtaking dexterity.[/BLURB]

You seem them on their crafts in all manner of poses: hitting the lake surface with an oar to frighten the fish into a flight that may take them into one of their teepee shaped bamboo traps; kneeling on the very tip of the bow feeding net into the water; or standing with an oar lodged within an arm pit while one rows from the blade of the oar and the other "planted" foot moves the boat this way or that, all the time laying or gathering net. Their nuanced acrobatics are an important part of the fascination of Inle Lake.

It's not all fishing and farming; there's a bird sanctuary that supports some 135 species, more than 200 Buddhist monasteries and, of course, a growing tourism infrastructure of some 15 hotels. Craft shops and restaurants are also gaining ground and the word is that a space has been claimed and partially cleared for a large five-star hotel. It may transpire that a powerful tourism stakeholder could encourage teak restoration and abolish some of the pesticides that drain into the lake from local land-based farms. That's the optimistic best case scenario.

Nature is still beautiful on Inle Lake, where cormorants stand atop bamboo poles preening their feathers and shaking the water from their wings and where you can spot stealthy herons picking their way among the reeds and the water lilies looking for fish or frogs. Boat tours on the lake visit a variety of attractions including a shop where women make cheroots using Burmese tobacco combined with star anise, honey, mint, betel nut and even banana.

The Jumping Cat Monastery was built here on stilts in the 1890s and until last year was famous for the cats that literally leapt through hoops, but the monks decided to stop the practice as an increase in tourists was turning their monastery into a venue for something like a circus act and perhaps diverting visitors' attention to the cats and away from the fine collection of 66 Shan-style Buddhas.

If you're planning on making Inle Lake part of a visit to Myanmar, you need to arrange your lake visit before everything else. According to A&K there are only about six hotels suitable for all but backpackers. The nice thing about traveling in Burma with A&K is that they have been in the country since 1997 and have advantageous relations all over the country. The Inle Lake View Resort that they use, for instance, is a beautifully situated property with fine teak wood rooms and a fine restaurant.

Though many young people would have you believe hydroponic farming was invented in college dormitories, the agriculturists of Inle Lake have been growing this way since at least the 12^th century and the moves that young skateboarders use to careen along the sidewalks of our cities have nothing on the lake's nimble fishermen. As far as natural landscapes go, this one preserves one of the most unusual relationships between people and nature in the world. Let's hope the democratizing government of Myanmar is nimble enough to save it.

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