Inle Lake Myanmar Hotel Leg Rower.

The people live in villages on stilts planted into the lake plus a unique aquaculture with 3 times harvesting per year. This is one of the most interesting places in Asia, unfortunately or fortunately -it depends how you look at- almost no one knows this.

Moving through the channel

towards the lake the gulls fly overhead, many are sitting on the whitewashed railings. The waterway widens into open water as it enters the lake proper about 20 minutes later. Progress along the Inle Lake is indicated by the white mileposts sited at regular intervals, protruding out of the Inle Lake carrying circular red discs with the distance covered marked in miles on the approach side and the mileage from the opposite direction shown on the reverse side of the disc.

Boats carrying people, locals, visitors or tourists speed past, coming from the south, creating tiny swells in their wake and causing sprays of water to hit the people in your boat at Lake Inle. The Gulls follow tourist boats tossing up food into the air. Other water fowl can be seen as this one of the three fresh water lakes in Myanmar serving as wildlife sanctuaries for breeding of water birds and resting places for migratory water fowl, in addition to forming the basis for fisheries.

The Phe Chaung monastery in the Inle lake,

(it is really in the lake) is about 170 years old. Coincidently one of the monks had a good idea some years ago. Since there was nothing to do for the monks they started to train the monastery's cats to jump through hoops, since then it got a real attraction and every day dozens of people come in on their Inle tour to have a look, if the cat jumps a small donation is expected, sometimes the cats wont jump but the visitors still donate.This monastery is also interesting in 

celebrated once per year including a regatta to find the fastest leg rower team. The cats have names such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe and other celebrities. The monastery itself is also a interesting destination, there is the usual lacquer ware, Buddha statues some covered with gold leafs and some antiques, the place is a excellent day trip destination on the lake.

Phaundaw Oo Pagoda is another top attraction.

procession but also the leg-rowing Intha boat races.

Inle Lake floating garden or aquaculture.

Some boats are engaged in bringing up silt, mud, weed and other decaying vegetation from the lake bottom, scooping them up in a coarse basket attached to the end of a pole. These are matted or woven together and anchored to the lake bed with bamboo poles forming the 'floating gardens' on which tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, peas, beans, fruits and flowers are grown. The technique brings up to 3 time harvesting per year.

By rail to Shan State Heho

and then motor the 35 km. From Taungyi, capital of the Shan State it is just a 30 km (19 ml) motor trip to Inle Lake. Naungshwe, a small town, is the main settlement on Lake Inle. This is where to begin the Inle Lake excursion as motor boats for hire will take the traveler around the Inle Lake to places of interest. Starting out through a straight narrow water pathway, the terminal portion of the Nankand Canal, with cultivated land on both banks hemmed off on each side by bamboo poles and wooden railing. A few houses on stilts, small banana groves, some ducks, swine, and a water buffalo or two can be seen

The Inle Lake Leg Rower

are probably the most amazing people around. They usually are Intha people who fled Mon State in the south several hundred years ago to escape the continuous wars between Myanmar and Thailand. They settled around the lake and living from fishing, the rather unusual way they do this is unique. Using the fish trap, balancing with one leg on the canoe and using the other leg for rowing. There is a rowing regatta every year.  The Inle Lake environs offer a deep insight into living in the past, everything is basic including the transportation on the water buffalo and the ox-cart under the heavy blossoms of the rain tree.

Most people have no engine on their boats or canoes, means everything goes quite

slow, but that's the natural pace here in the Shan highlands.

Inle Lake pictures are the reflection of a unique environment in a remote corner in Asia. Slowly this place come onto the international tourist radar and everyone who comes here is mesmerized from the totally different environment and living of the Intha People who row their boats with the legs, raise floating gardens on the surface of the lake and doing other things we only can marvel. There are a couple of excellent hotelsaround the lake, but the real thing is in the lake, that's Golden Island Cottages, read more.

Kayan or Padaung people

with the famous "long neck women" and their brass rings.

Most Kayan or Padaung women wear brass rings around their necks, arms and legs, legend tells to remind them to their ancestors the mythical naga snakes. A group from one of their villages in Shan State near Inle fled to the Thai town of Mae Hong Son because of the continuous fighting between the Myanmar army and the Karen rebels, this kind of civil war vanished a few years ago. But when they group wanted to leave Mae Hong Son to settle in New Zealand the Thai authorities made all kind of tricks and problems to not let them go away.

The reason? The Kayan people, especially the women and girls grow to a big tourist attraction in the area and lots of Thai people make money with them because of the large amount of money they make with them. Actually they keep them like in a Zoo make money with them and give them a little. It amazing how awkward this people are thinking from time to time.

A bit further down the southern outflow of the Lake is the mysterious and almost forgotten old pagoda world of Sagar often in black and very colorful, especially at the 5 day markets around Inle Lake.

The almost forgotten villages of Sagar at the banks of the Beluo Chaung river which drain the water from the lake is a unique settlement. Old pagodas and Nat shrines, most in bad conditions overgrown by the jungle are a great visual experience.

You can see almost all pictures in full scale in our e-books