[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index
][Thread Index
]
NEWS - Floating Farms In Myanmar's
- Subject: NEWS - Floating Farms In Myanmar's
- From: Rangoonp@xxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 20:30:00
Subject: NEWS - Floating Farms In Myanmar's Watery World
Floating Farms In Myanmar's Watery World
via the "Salt Lake Tribune"
BY PATRICK McDOWELL
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
When he goes out to weed his tomato patch, Myo Win
takes a boat.
There's no solid earth for the vegetables to take root
in, or for Myo Win to walk on. The vines grow on a
floating plantation in the middle of Inlay Lake. To tend
them, Myo Win paddles between the rows in his teak
canoe.
"I've been pulling up the weeds since I was 12, but I
don't know how old I was when I first got in a boat," says
Myo Win, 21. "Just a few days, probably."
Myo Win is one of thousands of farmers, fishers,
merchants and monks who live as semi-amphibians on
Inlay Lake, a placid water world set in picturesque
mountains 1,300 meters (4,300 feet) above sea level in
rugged Shan State, northeastern Myanmar.
Remote for centuries, the lake and its unique
inhabitants have become one of the country's more
popular attractions in recent years since the long-ruling
military regime eased tourism restrictions to bring in
more hard currency.
But a tourism boycott in 1996-97 to protest political
repression and the general remoteness of nearly
everything in Myanmar, also known as Burma, have
helped keep down the numbers of visitors and maintain
Inlay Lake's charm.
Except for the addition of motorized longboats and
electricity at the small hotels in Nyaungshwe, the biggest
town in the area, the lifestyle has changed little in
centuries.
Flat as glass and mostly shallow, Inlay Lake's waters
provide rich fishing grounds and floating farmland for
people dwelling in thatch and bamboo houses built on
stilts in villages above the water.
The residents seem grafted to hollowed-out teak
canoes, some of them a century old. Children learn how
to handle a boat not long after they begin walking.
Eventually, they master Inlay Lake's famed rowing
technique -- standing in the prow, the forward part of the
boat, and wrapping a leg around an oar to paddle.
Everyone hunts fish at least part of the time, trapping
prey in cone-shaped nets thrust to the lake bottom, and
then spearing them.
Myo Win and his family are primarily farmers,
cultivating so-called floating islands composed of dirt
and swamp vegetation.
From a large floating island, farmers cut off strips and
tow them back to their individual plots, laying them out in
rows and fixing them to the lakebed with bamboo stakes.
Individual families mark off plots of a few rows, each
with fences and gates, and keep a lookout for rustlers
from watch towers.
The self-irrigating farmland and cooler climate -- at
least for tropical Myanmar -- combine to produce
flowers, tomatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, beans, melons
and fine strawberries.
Underwater weeds grow profusely. Myo Win spends
several hours a day dragging them up between the
tomato rows with a long pole until his 13-meter (40-foot)
canoe is piled high.
"It's hard work," Myo Win says, straining from his
shoulders to ankles to haul up a new pole of weed from
the bottom. "My father is 50 and he can't do this work
any more. His back just gave out."
Four times a week, Myo Win paddles his load of
weeds to markets along the 22-kilometer (15-mile) lake
and sells it to shore farmers for fertilizer. Price: 300 kyats
(80 cents).
By the standards of Myanmar, one of the poorest
countries in Asia, the family is fairly well off, growing and
catching much of their own food. Selling tomatoes, fish
and fertilizer allows Myo Win, his parents and six siblings
to get by on about 800,000 kyats ($2,285) a year.
They buy and sell goods at a moveable market that
rotates every day between different villages along the
lake. It's a chance for the lake dwellers -- mostly from the
ethnic Intha minority -- to exchange goods with people
from the hills, mostly ethnic Shans and smaller groups.
On a recent day, the canal approaching the
Mainthauk village market was filled with scores of
canoes and motorized longboats docked against a
floating island jetty leading to the shore.
Sellers smoking fat cigars presided over thatched-roof
stalls displaying wares ranging from betel chewing
mixture to surplus army boots to orchids.
Hilltribe women in beaded costumes laid out blankets
piled colorfully with chiles, tea and saffron for sale.
Shoppers ate rice and fish dished out on banana leaves,
the original disposable dinner plates. Dogs quarreled
over the morsels.
"Business isn't so good," said Hla Maung, 62, who
was selling tea leaves. "Prices of everything are going
up, and there's not that many buyers. But this is the only
trade we know."
IF YOU GO
Warning: The U.S. State Department, at its Web site
(http://travel.state.gov), warns that Burma (Myanmar)
experienced major student demonstrations in 1996, and
demonstrations occurred again in August and
September of 1998.
Rangoon Post Addition: There is an on going tourism / travel
boycott until the country's control is returned to the rightful-legal
people.