Now I’ve really got to make stuff up! It’s Tuesday 19 February and we are at Wangaratta. Problems with photos locked inside broken phones and lack of internet – not to mention being rather busy doing all these things I’m not telling you about – all conspire…
Anyway, back to Inle Lake for our next expedition by boat. They trip started well enough, leaving our lovely hotel…
… with storks watching us…
All very organised – but before we had gone a mile down the channel our boat started making a funny “noise”. Best classified as noticeably silent! We had broken down. Still there were four boats and between them they had enough tools to do a major engine overhaul. I counted two spanners, a pointy thing that might have started life as a screw driver and seven hammers – the last of these being the tool of choice!
Ten minutes and two false starts later we were back in business. Bang, bang, bang…
So, we were due to go to Indein Village. It’s miles up a narrow channel across what became dry land. We had to “shoot” several “weirs” on the way.
These were bamboo obstructions put there to maintain the river level. Probably necessary to maintain “navigation” as the water level in the lake has fallen. The maximum height of the weirs was only 20 or 30 cms. But hitting them at speed so the driver could get his prop out of the water as we hit the bamboo sticks was quite exciting! The bows rose majestically before falling back with spray going everywhere.
Anyway, it was Saturday and EVERYBODY was doing their weekly wash (clothes and bodies!). There were young lads, old lads, young ladies, grandmothers – and possibly a few diplomats (I put that bit in for Penny, should she chance to read it!!). Everyone was at it. Washing their longis in water which had just washed 20 others upstream!
But the purpose of this visit was – yep, you guessed. Another temple! But first we had to run the gauntlet of the local scarf saleswomen. Anyone showing the merist hint of a smidgen of the possibility of interest was immediately surrounded by a jostling crowd of young ladies.
I could get quite used to being slightly interested in starting a scarf collection!
Anyway, this temple/pagoda was going to be our last opportunity to catch verrucas – so it had better be worth it. And boy, was it good. Called Shwe Inn Thein Pagodas (or posssibly Taunggyi I think). About 1000 Stupas are being rescued from the Myanmar jungle. Many have been restored…
… and many more are in various stages of recovery…
but many more are just piles of rubble awaiting – well, just awaiting, really!
The whole collection was absolutely stunning and well worth the Battle of the Scarves and the 20 minute walk through the forest to reach it. The actual temple itself was a good example of a relatively untouristic place. Everything being relative, of course!! It had standard “men-only near the Buddha policy”, the occasional monk and the mandatory temple cat.
The approach covered stairway to the pagoda.
After this we saw people earning their $3 a day turning blocks of silver (1 kg is worth some $516 c.f. gold which would be about $41,200 for the same weight)…
into fine jewellery…
And our final visit of the trip was to a group of local tribes-women who had the inexplicable and rather gruesome custom of wearing brass rings round their necks to stretch them unnaturally.
The incredible thing we discovered, leaving aside th fact that this custom actually still existed in the country, was the weight of the rings. It should be noted that they are not individual rings but rather a continuous spiral (or, strictly speaking, a helix) of brass. The number of “rings” is increased with the wearer’s age. Between the age of 9 to 20 years, rings are increased from about 13 to 25. The weight moves up from about 4 to 10 kg!!! That’s more than my hand luggage weighs – usually! And I bet they have trouble with metal detectors at the airport. One story we were given is that it stops tigers biting them on the neck! Well, maybe, but they do have other soft bits for the animals to chew. There are, in fact, no wild tigers left in Myanmar nowadays – but nobody seems to have told these ladies!
Tomorrow we are out of here… but that’s a whole new story of unbelievable proportions!
But before I finish this I have a question for you. Which is heavier a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?
a) a pound of gold
b) a pound of feathers
c) possibly they weigh the same!
Please leave your answer as a reply to this message.
Answer will be provided in a later post – if necessary!
C – can’t fool us.
How’s that cough?
Are they both weighed on at the same spot on earth or one on the space station?
A kilogram is a kilogram, no matter what you are weighing! And I believe the rings actually push the shoulders down, rather than lengthening the necks, and they have to sleep with them on as the neck muscles loose strength (according to our guide in Myanmar).
The answer is in the question. Pounds are weights and therefore set the common standard for whatever you try to weigh. We’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days! And we tell porkies too.