Inle is a network of floating villages and farms up in the hills of the central Shan State, each village marooned on stilts with the only transport being long canoes. Our hotel is no exception.
Whizzing between the various villages, we are lucky to meet a lot of locals: fisherman, paper-makers, lotus flower weavers (whose skill in particular blew my MIND), monks, Shan communities from the surrounding hill tribe villages, farmers, silversmiths. It's honestly so insane how they make everything by hand, their skill is crazy and it made me take stock of how used we are to machine made items that we buy for bottom dollar prices when even paper here in Myanmar is an 8 hour job.
We also meet some extraordinary long neck women, who each carry a staggering weight of brass rings around their necks in the name of beauty. The younger ones (both so so beautiful I might add) have fewer rings but the older women, they tell us, are unable to remove their many rings, even for sleep, as too much time has passed and the number of rings too great that their necks would be sure to break. The whole idea makes me shiver...
Solution? Take a break with some green tea and some papaya salad in a floating restaurant. Boom.
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