One of the must see sights in Inle Lake is their market day. For each day of the week there is a certain market that is open and practically everybody goes there. Usually guides know which market is open for the day and ours was no different. We were headed directly the to the market of the week. My guide never mentioned what the name of the market was and neither did the staff at Bright Hotel. I thought I should have taken better notes.
Anyway, nothing prepared me for what I was about to see. At the end of the lake, there was a huge group of wooden boats parked at the market area. All the boats were of the same type as mine and we all long. It seems that villagers in the Inle Lake area all seem to descend into this area and start clogging the water way. At first it seemed that there was absolutely no way that we can get though to the dock without getting our feet wet. I’m not sure how deep it was at that point, but I have no plans on finding out.
Slowly but surely, our boatman started slinking our narrow boat through huge mass of boats. The boatmen we were passing by were all aware of the procedure and were all helping along any boat that needs to approach the dock. With a minimal amount of bumping into the other boats we actually made it through. As I looked around, people who come here are not just locals who need to buy stuff, but also the farmers who sell their produce. A boat with two ladies started firing in Burmese and was showing us all sorts of handicraft. Fortunately, they were focusing on my French lady companion and only bothered with my minimally.
It is really interesting to visit markets as alive as these and I’m looking forward to exploring this fascinating area.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/InleLake.kmz} zoom=14]