Once we actually arrived at the Lake the area certainly
became more developed – if you can use the term developed when referring to the
a change from sparsely-scattered, tiny houses on stilts to clusters of larger
houses on stilts and an increase in motor-driven, little, wooden boats over
hand-paddled, little, wooden boats. Also the rice paddies disappeared though
there was still a lot of water hyacinth everywhere.
After lunch, we took did some required workshop visits. The
blacksmith was pretty standard. The boat makers were kind of apropos. But the weaving
workshop was actually impressive. In the first place the silk weaving patterns
use patterned thread. I don’t know if that is standard and I’ve just never
noticed it before. But somebody creates long lengths of thread that is tied in
places (exact places that are someone perfectly marked without the benefit of
measuring) and then dyed so that the old 1960’s tie-dyed effect creates the
pattern- a completely different pattern, mind you, for every thread in the
fabric’s pattern. Then somebody has to weave all those different spools in the exact
right order to make it all come out right. No idea how they do that.
But even more interesting was the weaving done with thread
made from lotus blossom stalks. I know, who knew? They crack the stalks and as
they pull them apart the slimy looking, stringy stuff inside pulls out and gets
rolled into thread. Can you see in the second zoomed in image the fibers she's pulling across to her left thumb?
Over and over
and over again the women snaps a handful of stalks (in half, in quarter, etc,
etc) rolled each section of fiber into the first to make a long thread. That
has to be mixed with rice powder to strengthen it and spun into thread which
has to be wet when it is woven so that it maintains its strength and even so
has to be worked less aggressively to make the final fabric. Presumably this is
only done in the Inle Lake area though without internet, how can I be sure. But
I am now the proud owner of a lovely 100% lotus (NOT the lotus/silk combo, thank you) scarf.
At the end of the day, we enjoyed a nice enough sunset.
After which the night-feeding mosquitoes came out and that
was the end of that.
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