Inle Lake Things to Do

During our trip to Burma, we spent a few days at Inle Lake. Like most tourists visiting the area, we spent a day on the lake in a long tail boat. We enjoyed watching the fishermen at work. Fishermen from this area are famous for their ‘leg-rowing’ which involves them wrapping their leg around the paddle to guide them through the water. We also visited floating villages on the lake and observed the locals partaking in the making of silk, silver, tobacco and paper. After having completed our ‘compulsory’ boat trip on the lake, we searched further for something that would help us with our quest to discover the ‘real’ Burma.

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Inle Lake is full of tribespeople trying to survive based on traditional crafts such as weaving cloth. One unique product of Inle lake is making cloth from the Lotus Root/Reed.

The shop we went to (I'm not sure if it is the only one)was Ko Than Hlang. You can go to the back where you can see the extracting of the "thread" and spooling it onto spindles and then weaving it into cloth- all done manually using hand spindles and bamboo looms. Someone will explain all the steps in the process to you.

Why not support them by visiting their shop and if you can buying something? They also sell quality silk clothes, scarfs and lungis. The prices vary considerably.
To see what I bought click: KoThanHlang

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It´s very pleasant to see the farmers way of life on the lake. Long boats transporting villagers, people fishing, harvesting. Small villages along the way with the backround of the beautiful Shan mountains, a very nice and peaceful experience.

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Inle is also famous for its special style of aquaculture; the famous floating gardens. Located north of Nampam Intha village farmers grow vegetables, tomatoes and flowers in these gardens. For years a collection of hyacinth, weeds and grasses made a thick layer of floating land around the rim. They cut it in long pieces and tied them up to the bottom of the lake by bamboo poles, then they plant the seeds and harvested by boat when grown.

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It´s a common stop on the journey through the lake to visit a weaving workshop in the town of In Phaw Khone, where you can see all the complex creation and production of the Lotus textiles. Beautiful and expensive.

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The water hyacint (not nature to the lake) is a big problem for the fishermen, that´s why they use their legs to row. They stand on one leg rowing with the other wrapped around the oar to have a perfect view of the front. Maybe one of the most iconic features of the lake.

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After visiting the beautiful shrines and statues of the monastery, we were ready for the show. 15 cute cats wandering around the visitors (some of them very friendly and used to humans) waiting in row to perform the jumping show through loops. A very nice afternoon, waiting to stop raining, enjoying the cats jump.

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A 18th century monastery built on teakwood on stilts over the lake, its located on the eastern side of it. A dark structure that contains a very interesting collection of Buddha images located in their own shrines, some of them are really surprising with beautiful wooden carvings covered with gold leafs. But most of the people come for the cat show. Monks have trained their cats to jump through loops. So as we were trapped there due to the heavy rain we enjoy jump after jump from the cute and lazy cats.