An emergency today. Our tour leader got very sick. We didn't realize how bad she was until we were at the airport. I was deputized to get us checked in. I got her a wheelchair and the airport people were very helpful getting her through security, but at the gate, it was just too much. She was in so much pain she couldn't stand up. I asked the man at security if there was a doctor at the airport. He said since it was Sunday there was nobody who could help. I asked where the nearest hospital was and he said they were all closed. I asked, "Even for emergencies?" and he told me they were closed. I almost lost it then. There is being calm and polite, and then there is just incredulousness. I said, "I do not believe you. There is no emergency room in all of Mandalay that's open today?" He then told me to wait, making "calm down" motions and went to leave. I pointed at my friend and said, "We need help." Finally, the woman at security came over to me and said that she had called someone form the airline to come down to the gate. A young woman came, told me that the hospital was about 45 minutes away and that she would call a taxi and make sure our guide got into it all right. It took two women about ten minutes to do what a man told me was impossible.
Our guide spent that day in the hospital, then rested for another two nights in Mandalay, and would join us in Inle Lake our last night there. She wasn't charged anything for her hospital visit or the medications that they gave her, and she said that she was treated very well in the hospital. We met our local guide when we arrived in Heho and he scooped us up onto a bus, then threw us into long boats for our introductory ride on Inle Lake.
We had arrived in the Shan State.
Myanmar is divided into seven divisions where Bamar (Burmese) are in the majority, and seven states where non-Bamar are in the majority. The Shan State is just such a state. Nearly a quarter of Myanmar is covered by this mountainous region, with the Shan people people making up about half the population. Other minority groups fill out the vast region according to location. The Eastern part of Shan State borders China, Laos, and Thailand. The elevation here does not make cultivation of regular crops easy. Something else grows well here, though. The opium poppy. Myanmar is the second highest producer (after Afghanistan) of opium. Afghanistan produces such a higher percentage, though, that Myanmar's numbers look paltry in comparison. However, it is the Shan state's main source of income and has, historically, funded the operations of ethnic rebel armies. Signing ceasefires with these insurgents is the governments way of looking like they are doing something about the problem. The thinking is that if the armies don't need guns to fight the government, they won't need the opium trade for cash. This seems....well, to me it underestimates the desire for cash, no matter if it is for guns, housing, a better life, or whatever.
However, none of this conflict is apparent on the placid surface of lovely Inle Lake. It is fourteen miles long and seven miles wide. The depth depends on the season, no rivers run to it, only rain water. There are seventeen villages on the lake. On it. On stilts. Our guide tells us that there are lake people and village people. Some families do both, using the house on the lake as a "day house" for work. They have floating gardens here that must be tended and harvested. There are also around a hundred monasteries and a thousand stupas that service Buddhist majority.
The fishermen here use a flat bottomed boat, a cone-shaped net structure, and a one-legged rowing technique that leaves the arms well rested. They wrap one leg around the oar, balance with one leg on the front of the boat, then row.
With our main guide missing, we suffered through a silversmith demonstration, a weaving demonstration, long necked women demonstration (exactly what it sounds like) and a cheroot making demonstration. All with options for shopping, of course. I indulged in some cheroots. After Cuba, it doesn't hurt to sample, right? This particular company I went with has a "no shopping" policy, which is fantastic when there is someone there to enforce it. As it was, I sort of led the final call to skip the paper making and umbrella making demonstration as we all just wanted to get to the hotel.
As we made our way there in the long boat, some seagulls looking for a great kept pace with us as we sped along the lake. It is amazing to watch a bird flying parallel to the boat, low and fast. It made me so happy.
Our hotel was gorgeous. Each room an individual raised villa, surrounded by glass, with a little porch. A huge bed in the center of the room, covered in mosquito netting. A soaking tub in the middle of the gigantic bathroom. That led to a rather brackish, but satisfying, bubble bath. It was quite a place.
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