The Inle Lake in Myanmar
Today is Sunday the 29th day of July 2018. I am expecting to welcome into my blossom a birthday girl and five of her family members. I hope this can be one of the best experiences of her life. I wish that this day can be a memorable one for her.
There she is, getting on the narrow motorized ‘dragon boat’ now with her husband and a local guide. Her second daughter’s family of four have boarded on another narrow boat earlier and they are waiting in front of her at the pier of the Inle Lake Villa Resort.
As their boats are the usual ones here without roofs, I have petitioned the Weather God not to rain for this Happy eightieth Birthday of hers. The Weather God has answered my prayer and the dark clouds on the horizon have not broken into the rain. I hope and pray that this condition will stay for the rest of the day.
For those who have never been to Myanmar, my name is Inle Lake, located at the near-center position of the country, accessible by air to the city of Heho and another hour’s drive through 37 km through the Shwenyaung - Nyaungshwe Rd.
If you care to check up on the internet’s Wikipedia, you will know that I am a freshwater lake averaging 2.10 m in depth during the dry season and 1.50 m during the raining season. I measure a total surface area of 116 km2 (compare this to the size of the country of Singapore - 717 km2 or the size of Lake Taupo, New Zealand, of 616 km2 or roughly the land mass of Chinatown, Singapore. The distance from the northern tip of me to the southern tip is 22 km and the widest distance from the western side to the eastern side of me is 11 km.
Rumours had it that the British and the Indian civil servants during the British occupation of Myanmar (formerly known to the British as Burma) had played water polo inside me. But, I know the truth. I was still living then as I am living now. They did try to play water polo then but the truth was that the growth of hyacinths within me prevented their water polo balls moving in the directions the players were predicting. They just gave up, especially when the one-legged oarsmen also interfered with their games.
You can check up on the internet as to the altitude I am located and report back to me as this is the vital statistics that I cannot check for myself. Please help me in this regard.
There is no actual shoreline along my sides as the seventeen villages along my edges are on stilts. In other words, you cannot walk around me as the shallower waters often turn into marsh paddies that become dense and any path then becomes impassable.
Read more about me at:
http://www.hotels-myanmar.com/inle-lake/?cid=ch:OTH:001
http://www.hotels-myanmar.com/inle-lake/?cid=ch:OTH:001
Now back to the Sunday 29th July 2018.
It is now 4:30 pm and I find that our birthday girl is dozing off sitting in the same position in the boat, on her way to Nanthe to go on to HeHo Airport.
Yes, it has been a pleasant day for her and her family members. The day has been cloudy and there has not been any raindrop. But her husband though had remarked that he felt some slight rain has fallen. He must have mistaken the splashes of water from nearby passing boats as raindrops.
Our birthday girl and her family members have visited
(1) a floating village and floating garden;
(2) a weaver’s community and workshop, watching how the fabrics and textiles are produced from the Lotus stems;
(3) a blacksmith’s workshop, and have lunch at a famous floating restaurant.