It is a given that Inle Lake sustains the communities around its shores. Throughout history, man has always lived near a source of water. In the highlands of the Shan state in Myanmar, this can’t be any truer. Everyday, the people of Inle head to its waters for various reasons, to fish, to clean their clothes and others to merely cross it to get to the next town. Even if you just operate a guest house, chances are, you’ll need to help your guest arrange for a lake tour.
What I noticed here in Inle Lake is that there are teams of fishermen just scooping out what appears to be sea grass. Sea grass is a misnomer since the lake water is fresh. I saw several long boats filled with the stuff almost to the point of overflowing. They are lucky that the lake waters are so placid, if not, small waves will definiitely cause water to go in the boat. There were boats filled with sea grass that the waterline it just centimeters away from the top of the boat.
The sea grass apparently is to be turned into swine feed and since Inle Lake is quite vast there is plenty of sea grass to go around with. It probably grows quite fast too. Apparently, the lake’s shallow nature is conducive to the growth of these plants.
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