Reminiscing the brief visit to Inle Lake, Inle Lake had left me with slides of beautiful untouched landscape. The morning market and the boat tour will definitely bring you to another era. But, if you book yourself a one-day tour boating around Inle Lake, be prepared for some tourist drudgery. I didn’t mind going for the sake of discovering Inle Lake. In addition, the places consisted of interesting photography subjects.
The whole journey to the alternate market can be read here -> Burma 08 : Things to do at Inle Lake (Part 1).
Lotus Fabric Factory
One of the things to do at Inle Lake is to visit the lotus fabric factory. We were brought to one house on stilt which was used as fabric factory. Interestingly, the factory produces lotus fabric. Stems of lotus flowers are cut in order to extract the thread which will be pulled into a string. The threads are then washed, dried and then hand-woven on looms. Lotus-root fabric was first developed by a woman who created a set of robes from lotus plant for a monk from nearby monastery. The robes was a masterpiece and the lotus weaving skills began to spread in the village of Kyaing Kan.
Because of the number of lotus to be used to make a scarf is high, the lotus scarf is expensive than silk.
Cheroots Making Factory
It was in deed a new discovery for me. Never knew cheroots are distinct tradition of the Burmese. To be honest, by the time I went to Myanmar, all I knew was Aung Sang Su Kyi and whatever happened to her as reported by the mainstream media. Little did I know about the places, culture and tradition of Myanmar.
It turned out to be one of the finest producers of cheroots. Taungyi ladies in Inle Lake is famous for rolling cheroot. When we arrived at the stilt house cum cheroot factory, we were brought to the main area whereby there were three ladies with smiling faces rolling cheroots. They could roll up to 500 cheroots a day. The ingredients for cheroot are tha-nat leaves, bits of dried soft wood seasoned with tamarind pulp, crushed tobacco leaves, dry corn husks for filters, a skein of silk or cotton thread. The ingredients vary according to the recipe passed on through generations.
Cheroots are very distinctive in Myanmar that they are also known as “Burmese facial feature”. For interesting pictures of Burmese facial feature, please visit Travel2Photography blog on Cigar and Cheroots : Burmese Facial Feature.