We woke up in a very cold room as there is no heat in the Myanmar Treasure Resort rooms. I had planned on using the outdoor shower but it was simply too cold to consider this morning. I wonder how the locals deal with the cold temperature in the morning.  Zaw later told me they dress warmly and use charcoal burners in the villages to deal with any early morning chill. Some of the newer homes do have electric heaters to ward off the morning chill. We bundled up and had breakfast. It did warm up quickly once the sun came up.

 

Zaw and our long boat returned to pick us up at 9:30. Today he wanted to take us to a local market that occurs every five days in the Khaung Dein Village, located on the western side of the lake, on land, not over the water.

The market was a 5 minute walk from the boat landing and it was hopping with buyers and sellers of anything you might need or want  (or not need in the case of we tourists)! We wandered through the aisles marveling at the food and goods for sale. As expected this market attracts tourists so there was plenty of opportunity to find “more treasures” to take home. The joke has now begun that we will have to start to discard clothing and shoes to meet our baggage weight limit. We spent a good 30 minutes simply walking through the market with Zaw explaining what we were seeing, and answering our questions.  And I took a ton of pictures of people and things, trying to capture the feel of the environment.

After leaving the market Zaw walked us through the village side streets where we visited local shops processing food goods like pumpkin and sunflower seeds, tofu, bean cakes, rice noodles, pork rinds and other snack food that the locals enjoy. The methods used to process the foods are simple: use the sun to dry the food; burn corn cobs to generate cooking temperatures; use simple tools and cooking implements. All the shops are family owned and operated businesses. Small children wander around as the women worked. We were told the men would be out in the fields or driving the long boats.

Back on the long boat we were taken to another lake village where silversmiths plied their trade. Again everything is done by hand with rather primitive techniques, yet beautiful products are produced and the prices are reasonable, compared to what we have seen in other parts of the world.

While at the silversmith Gerry heard rock and roll music coming from nearby. We asked Zaw if we could explore and nearby we found what turned out to be a wedding. Zaw explained that Burmese weddings are large as the whole village gets invited. At his wedding there were 1,000 guests! We got to see beautifully dressed people arriving, drinking tea while a R&R Burmese band entertained the guests in an outdoor canopied tent. The bride and groom were in a separate reception and we were asked if we wanted to go to see them. We gracefully declined so as to not be disruptive. It was a fun encounter!

Zaw discussed the “long neck” people from the mountain villages and asked if we wanted to meet some. Of course, we said so he took us to a local home where we met  a lady and her daughter who come from that region. It was a National Geographic moment, as we all remember seeing pictures of people with extended necks in the National Geographic magazine when we were growing up. We were told that the first coil of metal was added to a girl at the age of 8, then another at 14 and the final size at age of 20. Supposedly the fixture does not affect their ability to breath or eat but if removed the women would have difficulty holding up their heads :as the neck muscles would have atrophied over time.  I was surprised at how heavy the coil of metal was.

Our boat travel then shifted to one of the big rivers (Indein) that feed the lake. It was a total different feel with tree-lined banks and farm fields. There was still a lot of other long boats plying the river with us. We reached the small village of Indein where we came to visit of the famous temple site (the Shwe Indein Pagoda) in this area. What makes it unique is that the “jungle” stupas are much smaller and more slender than those in Bagan. In this temple complex are there are over 1,000 such structures. No one knows when they were built but speculation is they could date back to BC times.  Most have not been restored but still retain a beauty about them.

We paused for lunch in a local restaurant in Nuaungshwe called Golden Kite,  where the menu featured Burmese (natch) food or Italian.  Guess what we all had? I later found it is considered one of the best restaurants in the area. The owner learned to make oven fired pizzas in Naples, Italy and the tasting platter we had was excellent.  Lunch also included his signature chocolate cashew crepe which was to die for!  It was a fun and tasty stop.

 

After lunch Gerry and I walked up to another cluster of stupas in the area while the ladies sat on the steps by the river, watching to world walk by.  The field of structures reminded me of a cemetery as the temple structures are closely spaced. My pictures do not do justice to the immensity of the temple complex.

We returned about 20 minutes later with pictures and some cool locally made bottle openers made of wood, nuts and bolts. We found our wives happily resting on steps by the dock and we headed back to the boat for the trip back to the hotel for some rest and a shower before happy hour.

It was time for happy hour at the resort to have some more $4 drinks, some new Burmese snacks and watched the sunset, which was not as spectacular as yesterday.

We leave tomorrow for Mandalay. I believe we all will miss this idyllic part of our journey. It was a fascinating place to experience and I am certainly happy I did not follow my first instinct to not include it in our itinerary. To do so would have been a big mistake.