Saturday was equally tiring. Breakfast then off at 9.00 a.m. by boat to a large market near the southern end of the lake. An amazing experience. Then we move on to look at silk weaving at a large and well-organised workshop employing around 80 locals. All the weaving is done on wooden handlooms. All the buildings are on stilts over the lake, so everything comes and goes by boat.
The same is true of the blacksmiths' shop we visit. I'm fascinated by the simple 2-cylinder pump used to provide the air supply for the forge. An old man alternates two bamboo rods up and down. A simple piston at the bottom of the rod is made airtight using – chicken feathers! The raw material is leaves from old lorry laminated springs. I watched them making knives. A suitably-sized piece of steel is made red hot in the forge then transferred to a simple, round anvil, holding it in a pair of tongs. Two hammer men then attack the metal, with the tong man turning the workpiece through 90 degrees between blows. Two more hammer men then join in, until the piece is too cool to work on. The workpiece is returned to the forge and the process repeated. Eventually, they produce a shaped but blunt knife. This is 'edged' not by a wheel (as I expected) but by a two-handled spokeshave with a sharp, steel blade.
We then move on to the Ngwe Zin Yaw cheroot factory. The dexterity of the girls as they roll the product, turning out a cheroot every few seconds is amazing. I think 500 a day is regarded as average output but they're on piecework and a good operator might produce 800 in a day.
Next, Phaung Daw Oo pagoda, with five sacred statues depicting the head of the Buddha. The application of gold leaf offerings to these heads has covered all the features. Next, lunch at a well-appointed restaurant, built on wooden piles in the lakebed. There are no other diners and the associated hotel has had no guests for 3 days. The people of Myanmar are suffering with the drastic reduction in the number of tourists visiting.
The Inn Shwe Pyi is a craft shop with two 'long necked women' as an attraction – I find that rather unsavoury but am fascinated by the weaving they're doing, using a very simple form of loom. Then on to a silversmiths. Most of the output doesn't appeal, but I'm amazed at the size of the showroom and the number of girl sales assistants on hand (at least a dozen), considering that we only saw around six European tourists all day. Whilst we were in the silversmiths, a fierce tropical rainstorm occurred, so we wait for it to finish before venturing out to cruise around a large village where almost every building is built on wooden piles with only water access. We can watch people going about their daily round in this 'water world'. Amazing!
Finally, we stop at a wooden monastery built on teak piles which has survived around 200 years – the Nga Phe Kyaung monastery, made famous by a Western reporter as the 'leapimg cats monastery' because one of the monks had taught cats to jump through hoops. The last of the leaping cats died a few months ago (cat 'flu, I'm told), but there are plenty of non-leaping cats in residence. Then we head across the lake for 'home', passing many Leg Rowers fishing from their tiny craft.
