The market of the week that we went to was characteristically chaotic as most markets tend to be. There were people from all over the countryside coming here to sell their goods and and equal number of people come here to purchase goods. Nearest the docks are tables with a lot of ancient looking souvenirs. I have no idea whether these were looted from the temples but they looked quite nice.
There were also other tables selling traditional handicrafts. I remember a friend of mine wanted a souvenir from Myanmar and I guess this was the perfect place to buy it. I finally settled on a tiny replica of a long boat with a fishing trap made of teak wood. There were other stuff there but I thought this was one place that would represent Inle the best. Chasing us around the market were hat sellers, they were selling the woven types which were actually quite tempting since it was really quite hot here with the sun blazing away. I ended up buying a hat of my own after some serious haggling.
My French companion stumbled onto this stall selling rolled leaves of tobacco. I have never seen anything like that and they had a whole bunch of them there. My companion decided to purchase some for his son also after some serious haggling. The Burmese were quite reasonable when it comes to hanggling, I guess they do not get as many tourists here. In fact, during our stay at the market, I didn’t see another tourist.
I mentioned that during market day, the people from the remote areas in Inle would descend upon this place. There were indeed people who were noticeably different from the “locals”. I can tell because they were wearing some sort of head dress, much like the Yao people of China. It won’t surprise me that these people were indeed from the Yao minority group since the Shan state is the home of a lot of these minority groups.
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