Inle Lake Life: Bamboo, Ancient Pagodas & More

Life on Inle Lake is simple yet refined – pagodas, open-air markets and hand-made boats of all shapes and sizes dot the lake

Inle Lake in Shan State, Myanmar, features a myriad of pagodas and more!

Click Here to read Part 1 of my adventure to Shan State’s iconic Inle Lake

Click Here to read Part 2 of my adventure to Shan State’s iconic Inle Lake

For High-Resolution Photos of my trip to Inle Lake: Click Here

Life revolves around the water for the Shan people of Inle Lake. Bamboo, however, is what sustains it. From boats to housing to bridges and lacquer ware,  it’s bamboo that makes it possible for the Shan to keep on keeping on. Having already taken in blacksmiths, cigar and clothing factories and some iconic scenery like one-legged fishermen, it was time we saw how the people make their life possible. Our stop at the Hein Thapyay Bamboo Shop gave us a first-hand look at how dishes, plates, hats and more are made solely from hand.

Perhaps the third ingredient for life on the lake is religion. The Shan are deeply religious and having seen the Hpaung Daw U Pagoda in the village of  Nyaung Shwe, I thought we had seen the gist of Inle Lake Buddhism. Then we arrived at the ancient Shwe Indein Pagoda (Shwe Inn Tain Pyay) near the small fishing village of Indein. The quiet hillock is located on a busy little stream that the locals fish, bathe and wash their clothes in.

The twisting and turning Indein Creek is laden on both sides with paddy fields and it isn’t uncommon to see water buffaloes and farmers strutting about, but I digress, the Shwe Indein Pagoda is a huge hill filled with hundreds of ancient, destroyed and newly-built stupas of all colors, shapes and sizes. To reach them, you’ll have to walk up about 700m worth of  footpath in your bare feet. Each side of the walkways are lined with souvenir and gift shops with vendors hawking everything from puppets to longyis and fabric and every other sort of tzotchke you can think of.

The older stupas, gray and serene, were built around the 8th century (some sources say between the 14th and 18th centuries). We arrived around 4:00pm and most shops and vendors, along with the few tourists on the lake, had mostly cleared out. This left us to take in the unrestored and natural, overgrown beauty of the pagoda to ourselves. It can be an eerie place, as the only thing you can really hear standing among the hundreds of centuries-old pagodas is the light breeze and quiet wind. Truly an awe-inspiring and memorable place to behold.

Further down the hill from this incredible section of unrestored stupas are a core section of more modern pagodas, each built with donations from all around the world. Some of the more recent pagodas are marked as recent as 2005 and in total, there are said to be 1,054 different stupas in this complex alone! For a little Myanmar legend, according to an inscription on a stone tablet, the Shwe Inn Dain Pagoda was built by India’s greatest emperor Ashoka Maurya (304-232 BC). There is no real archaeological evidence for this legend or others that claim the area was originally built up in 200-300 BCE.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the trip to Inle Lake! I will post a repository of photos (you can take thousands of amazing photos in one day at Inle) under the “Explore Myanmar” tab at the top of the page. See you on the next adventure!