Stilts and Gardens
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Tue 5 Dec 2017 22:37
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Houses on Stilts and Floating
Gardens
 We crossed the Inle Lake in the early
morning mist and by the time we got to the other side the sky was clear. We
entered the first of the floating gardens and there was our
first house on stilts, a real cutie, home to one of the many farmers who
grow tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, lotus flowers and more. The lake is home to 124
villages, 12 of which are directly built on the water.
  A few minutes later and we were in
our first village, surprised to see four bedroom
detached houses, as well as bungalows, workshops, schools, shops, pagodas,
hotels, guesthouses, hostels, a Post Office and a couple of monasteries. Some
villages were arranged in lines, power cables running down the ‘streets’. Some
communities had bridges between the areas. Some houses had their own gardens and
those in the shallowest water had fenced their boundary and were back-filling.
Some had done the same and built brick retaining walls. We saw ladies were doing
their laundry from the bottom step, little ones playing, washing up being done
and a lady was cleaning her teeth. Bear thought it amusing that if a housewife
asked her husband for some tomatoes, he would rev up his
boat and nip off for some. We saw outhouses, off-set toilets, one
careful owners and jaunty angles. Here are some pictures taken during the
day.
                                         ALL IN ALL SOME WERE HUGE AND
THE PLANTS WERE ABUNDANT
A SURPRISING NUMBER, MORE LIKE A
CITY |