A
7.30am start at the bridge to meet our lovely lady called: she said that two of
her cousins will take us for the day on the lake. Both boys didn’t look older
than 16 year old but they knew how to use the flat bottom boats and its engine.
After going through the itinerary for the day we left. The first half hour was
a cold and noisy ride to the lake. There were many boats on there to take all
the tourists so it was a race between the young boys who were in charge of the
boats. When we finally entered the lake it looked very surreal as this is what
I was expecting to see with many fishermen scattered around on the lake trying
to catch some fish or weeds. Some of them look more traditional then others but
our guides stopped at one of them so we could take a picture.MISSING (silver and black smith) Finally lunch time at
a very big restaurant with many tourist which was located in front of a big
Pagoda which looked to shining and there were to many traders to flock their
prullaria in front of it. So we decided to take charge of the rest of the
afternoon and tried to communicate with the boys that we wanted to return to
the lovely village called Nampan and no tourist attractions anymore. They kept
on asking: to the jumping cat? And we had to reply: NO! Nampan is the best of
the lake in my eyes as this is a quiet village with bamboo houses on stilts.
The people aren’t used yet to tourist so when we were padding around in our
boat the children spotted us and jumped alone or with granny in their boat and
came over to see us and shake our hands. At some point we had 2 boats with kids
next to us and more waiving or screaming from their houses to catch our
attention. The Brangelina feeling returned and we waived and screamed back at
them while taking pictures. At some point a couple of little girls threw
butterfly kisses at us and we returned the favour. All very lovely and we
didn’t want to leave here as it was so peaceful and great to see that people still
live the way they like to.
Our
return trip went via the floating gardens; a massive area of tomato plants all
floating it the water! They pick the tomatoes from their boats and put them in
big wicker baskets which you can see coming into the village the next morning.
Then an hour ride back on the lake while sunset was setting in and still
fisherman catching their fish.
Inle
Lake is truly a beautiful place but I’m afraid that tourism will take over
which will be a big shame to see this happen.
such a shame when they take you to things that are clearly too touristy, thinking that that is what you want to see. They miss the point that for us it's the more natural things, not being done for tourism, that is what we want to see. I suppose it's sometimes a fine line, because by being there in the first place we're automatically tourists and demanding a certain type of experience from them, and even the most natural thing will become contrived to a point. By the way what is the "jumping cat" they were talking about?
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