BURMA, SHANGHAI, HONG KONG--PART TWO OF ASIAN ODYSSEY 2010
 

As per special request, I have broken this trip report into two parts. The first is here:


http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...yssey-2010.cfm


We will now proceed with the second section, which begins on the road to Mandalay (Mandalay airport, that is):


Mandalay International Airport is located a long distance from the city center and the drive took the better part of an hour. My friend had her hands over her face for most of the ride, as the driver weaved in and out of traffic in typical fashion and it probably seemed as if he were about to hit at least one of every type of conveyance on the road. Near the airport, the road suddenly became the superhighway type, minus the banking and grading. Our guide, Nyi Nyi, who was to accompany us to Inle Lake as planned, told us that this had been built by a “private company,” and was therefore in much better shape than the norm. We passed no other cars while we were on this portion of the trip. A large gold-lettered sign at the entrance to the terminal area reads “Mandalay Internation l Airport.” (One letter has slipped into oblivion). Next to the sign, a few dilapidated horse carts stand, their drivers fast asleep under a nearby tree. How can you not love this country?


The airport is new. The vast halls were empty and there were few opportunities to buy anything more than packaged snacks and drinks in the café area adjacent to the boarding gates. Our flight on Air Bagan, destined for Heho, departed on time, at 8:45am. Almost all of our fellow passengers were German, with the exception of an elderly Pandaw couple who were bound for the Inle Princess Resort. I had snagged a window seat but the view was virtually non existent due to the haze, and it was not until we were no more than 10 minutes out of Heho that I began to notice the landscape below. The green and rolling hills signaled that this was very different country than we had seen along the river.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your experiences at Inle. As you know, we loved it.

Thanks for breaking up the report eks!

Waiting eagerly to hear about my favourite state in Myanmar, yummy Shan food, gracious people and surreal places/scenery especially in the newly opened southern part of Inle lake !

River, Lake, swimming pool. Has anyone else noticed the aquatic trajectory of this thread It's as if the OP needs a water fixture nearby to be comfortable. Probably comes from living on an island.

Everytime she writes HeHo, I'm reminded of the dwarves of Snow White fame, singing on their way to work. Of course, the OP would be Grumpy, while I remain, Bashful.

Oh goodie! The story continues!

Good idea to break it up - look forward to hearing about Inle.

Ok, just to prove that I have not been slacking off, here is another tidbit, with the promise of more to come soon. Again, I am sorry for being so Pandodder-ish:





The plane landed on the tarmac at Heho’s tiny airport and we filed into the terminal area, passing a masked woman holding what looked like a laser gun that emitted a bolt of red light. She aimed this at each passenger as they passed. What was this, I wondered? A thermometer, I was told! Very space age, although perhaps I am late to the party on this one. The luggage arrived quickly and we filed out. But before we exited the terminal, I stopped at the Air Bagan desk to inquire about our flight two days later. I was concerned because we had a connecting flight to China on that day and, while we would have two hours to make this connection, I had heard that flight delays were common in Burma. If we were to miss our connection, we would have to spend two additional nights in Mandalay, because the Mandalay-Kunming flights do not leave every day. I probably should not have inquired, because when I did, I was subjected to quite a lecture from the Air Bagan official as to how, when one has an important connection, it is imperative to arrive the evening before, because flights were often delayed. So much for trying to reassure myself on that score!

We then filed outside, into the clear sunshine. The air here was cool and pleasant, a tremendous contrast to those we had left behind in Mandalay. I estimate that temperatures were in the low 70s in the early morning. (At sunrise it was even cooler, as we would find out the next day).

We were retrieved by our designated driver, arranged by Gracious Myanmar for the transfers, and boarded a van for the ride of about an hour or so to our hotel, on the eastern shore of Inle Lake. As soon as we began our drive, we realized that this was a totally different Burma than the one we had left behind on the Irrawaddy plain. This was cool and fairly green highland terrain and I was immediately captivated. We passed through the small city of Heho and, after a photo stop for a water buffalo lolling in a mud pool, we headed for the tiny village of Kaung Daing, which was the site of the roving Inle-area market on that day. (The market makes a circuit and returns the same spot every 5 days)

Here is the schedule for 2010:


http://www.travel-myanmar.net/marketdays-2010.htm

The Kaung Daing market sprawled out over a flattened patch of earth along the roadside. Our flight had arrived at 9:15, so it was close to 11am when we arrived at the market, and things were beginning to wind down. Nevertheless it was quite thrilling to see the market stalls with the various indigenous vegetables and fruits, along with the other usual market wares, ranging from bootleg CDs to one-use packages of shampoo.

It was here that we got our first glimpse of the huge (more than 12" in diameter) round, crispy discs made from rice that I began to call “Shan crackers.” There were also a few stalls selling wheat-based salty snacks of all shapes and sizes and I was happy to sample several that were proferred by the vendor before buying my own small bag. Please do mot miss these—they are addictive! All of the market vendors were friendly and none appeared to mind having their picture snapped. Although we had seen two tourists en route to the market (a pair of young Basques from Spain who were tootling along the bumpy road on rented bikes) I do not remember seeing any other tourists at this market, in contrast to the lake-side markets we would visit later in our stay.

Despite the lack of tourists, we did see a few stalls of tourist-oriented merchandise. Most interesting of these, to me, were the tables of items crafted from mother of pearl in southern Burma’s Rakhine State. There were ebony salad servers embellished with the shell, among other tempting creations. I felt that the prices were inflated, however; asking price for the salad servers was in the vicinity of $30US and there did not seem to be much room for bargaining. I did buy a polished, flat shell for about $10US, just because it reminded me of one we had on our house when I was a child. (Might make a nice soap dish) Be aware, though, that some of the shells used for nacre, or mother of pearl, come from endangered mollusks.

I remember the Mandalay airport well. I asked the driver to stop so I could take a picture (upon approach) and he informed me that it was 'not permitted' to photograph the airport. As he said this, he slowed to a creep while I surreptitiously took a photo. Who would believe it is 'not permitted' to photograph an 'international' airport! Only in Burma.

We spent about a hour walking through the market and tasting a few snacks. From there, we moved on to the Inle Lake View Resort, which would be our home for our last two nights in Burma. The Inle Lake View Resort (not to be confused with the Inle Lake Resort; there are several Inle Lake hotels with similar names, so be careful!) sits on the west shore of the lake and is accessible by road, unlike the Inle Princess Hotel, which we also considered and which, sitting on the eastern shore, requires a boat ride. Since our time was limited, we wanted to have easy access to the airport in Heho, less than an hour away.

We were very pleased with this hotel and I highly recommend it for visitors to Inle Lake. The architecture melds with both Burmese tradition and with its situation, on a rise overlooking the lake. Note that the hotel is not directly on the shore of the lake, but there were lake views from our rooms. I did not find this to be a drawback in any way. There are freestanding lake side villas, but we had requested deluxe lake-view rooms (the least expensive category) in the one of the hotel’s two-story wings at the hotels' highest point in elevation.

My first-floor room was spacious and handsome, with double doors that opened to the exterior at the rear, facing the lake, and gleaming teak floors. Our rooms were the last in our wing, they were quiet late at night, but I did hear some noise earlier in the evening when I had my windows open while a group of fellow (French) tourists held a cocktail hour on their balcony above me. The bathroom was also large, but different levels necessitate care when entering at night. Here are photos, on the hotel website:



http://www.inlelakeview.com/accommodation.htm

http://www.inlelakeview.com/about-the-resort.htm

We were charmed by the hotel almost immediately. The owner, Sander, is an enchanting Burmese woman who I met later that evening and who recounted the story of how she was able to devlop the hotel after purchasing the land on the lake shore. Staff is gracious and very eager to help. We noticed mosquito coils in the rooms but had no problem with insects during our stay in mid March. Upon check in, we also noticed a prominently placed sign on the front desk expressing sorrow that the hotel was forced to refuse any worn or torn currency.

After a quick wash, we were off.

A short walk down the hill, past the hotel’s vegetable gardens, brought us to the dock, where we clambered aboard the long tail motorized boat that awaited us, and headed off for lunch.

The tourist boats are open, with no shelter from the sun; ours had umbrellas on board for each passenger, but I would echo the advice of other travelers and advise packing hats and sun protection. Many of the Japanese tourists we would encounter also wore masks and gloves!

At NyiNyi’s suggestion, we headed for Ann’s Restaurant, about a 20 minutes ride from the hotel. Our first foray onto the lake was thrilling, although it was 15 minutes or so before we encountered any activity on the lake, in the form of fishermen and boatmen spearing the seaweed with large pronged pitchforks. This may have been to lure the fish into their baskets, or to gather the seaweed for the floating vegetable gardens that dotted the lake. In my excitement, I either forgot to ask or forgot the answer to my query.

When we approached Ann’s Restaurant, I was admittedly a little peeved to be headed for such an obviously tourist-oriented place. But while touring the lake, there are no other options, save eating onshore in a market-type eatery which would have wasted quite a bit of time since our goal was to see as much of the lake as possible. Do not underestimated the time it takes to travel from place to place on the boats.

Fortunately, the setting, on a side terrace cantilevered over the lake, was lovely and the food, although overpriced, was tasty. I neglected to note the total but I think it was in the neighborhood of $30US for four people. My notes comment:” Good chicken stir fry and Burmese-style green bean salad with peanuts. Fresh lime juices.” Here, too, the salads were the star menu attraction. The rest of the menu was kind of generic Burmese-Chinese and we would see variations of the same dishes at the next day’s restaurant as well.

There are clean, western rest rooms that double as fitting rooms for the on-site shop, with tempting items including handsome shirts in cotton and silk, and Shan-style trousers made of a blue and white handloomed cotton. I had seen these on the male staff at the hotel and was determined to purchase a pair for myself, which I would do later that day.

I could not resist a beautifully tailored shocking-pink cotton blouse with closures made from silver-colored coins--kind of a westernization of the tribal styles of this area and of northern Thailand.

Ann’s also has an extensive collection of old and new lacquerware, including Shan-style items which differ enormously from the style we had seen in Bagan. There is also an orchid greenhouse, which we declined to visit.

After lunch, with NyiNyi directing, we set off on our exploration of the lake. The day had turned hazy and the mountain views were much obscured, to our disappointment. Again, this is a result of the burning of the fields which takes place during this season. The water levels were very low at this time of year, and we were chagrined to learn that the water level has been falling precipitously each year, so much so that there is real concern that the lake may dry up completely within a few years. This would become glaringly obvious the following day when we visited a market village.

I'm following your time at Inle with great interest. We had several long conversations with Sander, and I sent her a link to my trip report.

So a person from NYC complains that lunch for four cast $30US. I guess she never goes to a restaurant in NYC.

We've escaped the Pandodderers and are now left with the OP and her two companions. How exciting!

Hush, Panda! It is a fortune for Burma! You are just trying to give me a hard time!

Kathie: She was a lovely woman and I can't even guess what difficulties she must have had establishing that hotel. I am guessing that you would stay there again if you returned, right?
I would love to go back and explore more of Shan state.

Really frustrated because I just erased a huge portion of the report that I was planning to post!

Anyway, here is a bit more:


I will comment here that many of the stops on the official itinerary followed by most tourists are actually shopping opportunities masquerading as handcraft workshops. So there is a “silver workshop,” which we skipped, and several weaving workshops, of which we visited two and found them to be interesting although one would have been sufficient.


I had initially wanted to visit the less-touristed southern portion of the lake, but after learning that the trip there would take about three to four hours each way, I nixed that idea, not wanting to spend 6-8 hours traveling in the boat, plus more time exploring the area, and went along with the “official” program. All was well, since our goal was to get as much of an overview of the area as was possible in the two nights/almost two full days that we had, and the main attraction was just discovering the joy of being in this fascinating area. (I did eliminate the famous jumping cat monastery from the official plan)


And so our next stop was a large handcraft shop, aka "workshop" which had the added “attraction” of having three Padaung Karen women, in residence.

I was initially put off by seeing them, and I do not want to imagine the sad story that had brought them to this shop in the middle of Inle Lake. But their demeanor seemed cheerful; they were joking around with each other when we arrived and kept up a convincing front, telling us that they would be there a couple of months before returning home and exchanging places with three others. They discussed the weight of their ornaments, and one of the women removed her leg rings for us to hold. They did not solicit tips.

For those wondering why these women would be here as magnets for tourists, here is a photo:

http://www.irrawaddy.org/articlefile...aung_women.jpg


And here is an interesting, related article:

http://www.marieclaire.com/world-rep...-neck-thailand

Yes, eks, I would stay at the Inle Lake View again. The owner talked with us about the process of building the resort and the difficulties involved in getting basic services when you are not a government owned or affiliated establishment.

We visited one weaving center (since I'm interested in textiles) and saw the process for extracting fibers from lotus stems and weaving them. Other than that, we avoided the handicraft stops. I have to say that the trip to the Southern part of the lake was a real highlight.

Kathie: I also was fascinated by the lotus weaving. I thought they were breathtaking when completed, too, but very pricey. (The scarf I liked was $140US and it was not very large).

I did mean to go to the southern part. But with less than two full days I just did not think I had enough time. And then there was the issue of my friends, who were dead set against doing this. Well, I have to leave something for next time, right!?

I am so annoyed that I lost all that text I had written. That is why this last bit is so abbreviated.

After the visit with the Padaung women, we piled back into the boat and began cruising around. This is a spectacular watery world and it makes me so sad to think that their way of life is threatened by a constellation of factors that combine to lower the water levels. There are at least 37 true villages and more than 130,000 people living on and around the lake. We wove through the canals lined by wooden houses perched high on stilts; many of these houses now contain homespun businesses designed to attract tourists—restaurants and handcraft shops, but there is no tawdry feeling at all. Life seems to proceed much as before here, with everyone trundling about in their hand-built canoes (there are two carvers in the area that craft these vessels out of teak logs), powered either by noisy motors (it is all but impossible to hold a conversation while you are touring by boat due to the noise of the motor), by paddles, or by their legs in the distinctive “leg-rowing” style indigenous to the lake.

We next stopped at a family owned weaving workshop, spread over a complex of three-story wood-plank buildings rising from the lake. Much of the thread is now imported from China or India but it is dyed and woven here into lengths of silk in complex designs including patterns indicative of the various states and regions in Burma and designed to be sold for longyis. There were also handsome ikat designs, and some spectacular, heavily textured fabrics woven of lotus fibers which had been gathered from the lake bed. We walked through the buildings, watching the dying and weaving process.


There is, of course, a shop which offers an array of beautiful temptations. I came close to buying one of the lotus fiber shawls. I am sure that the US$140 or so accurately reflects the work involved, fashioning the plant into thread for weaving and then completing the weaving, but I just did not want to spend that much. Now I regret my decision for these were very striking textiles indeed!

By this time the sun was beginning to sink and the lighting was excellent so we spent the remainder of the afternoon cruising the lake, watching the local people glide home in their boats heavily laden with market produce. Inle Lake presents a totally different picture of Burma than the one we had seen on the river, and I was very glad that we had included it into our itinerary. I would come to the belief that two days was a good amount of time to spend here, although three days/nights would have been ideal. That amount of time would have allowed me to venture to the less-touristed southern sector of the lake, which I would have liked to have done. But since this was said to be a four-hour trip each way from our hotel, I was not too distressed at missing out on this trip. The boats were not uncomfortable,by any means. The wooden seats are cushioned for tourists, and there are many opportunities to stop and stretch one’s legs. But the boats are noisy, as I mentioned, and eight hours, plus exploring time, is a long time to spend on the water, in the sun.

It's easy to imagine that the Karen women took pictures of the OP and friends. These pictures are no doubt handed around as examples of the hardship endure.

Plus, she gets snippy about a dinner for four for $30 and then gets stingy and doesn't buy a unique scarf for $130. What, did it not go with any of her Jimmy Choo shoes? How does she come to these finacial decisions? It's amazing. Plus, she saved the cash by not visiting the most interesting part of the lake.

I can't see how you knew that the Karen women took my picture. That was in the part that I accidentally edited. Do you have special x-ray powers now? They tried to get me to put on some of their getup but I maintained my dignity and refused. Also, I wore plastic flipflops.