Part of the charm of Inle Lake area in Burma is stopping by Indein Village, a picturesque small village in the Shan state with thousands of Stupas on top of the hill. It’s one of those places where I felt guilty stepping into, because it felt so pristine and so untouched by the outside world. I promise I will post my pictures of Indein Village itself someday. For now, I want to tell you stories of another facet of the village that caught my attention while I was there – the people of Indein.
Here we go.
As soon as our boat guy dropped us off, he said to “go that way” while pointing at this trail of small dirt road. He didn’t really speak English well, so we just kept walking and hoped for the best. We soon came across a soccer field where a seemingly exciting soccer match was going on. In order to get across the field, we had to walk on the sides and in front of a local school. That’s when I snapped this picture.
I think soccer is such a universal activity, especially in Asia. No matter which country you go to, you can count on finding someone who is excited to talk about soccer.
As we made our way up the hill to the thousand stupas, we got to see more of Indein and its people. The village in the afternoon is full of women with very young children, probably aged 1-3 years old. I see a few of the men working in the bamboo forest or by the river.
Another thing that caught my attention is that there are also many elderly ladies, and they seem to have penchant for smoking!
After we finally made our way up to the thousand stupas area I met this tiny boy.
He asked me for my crackers so I asked him for a picture. Caught him mid-sneeze!
Because Indein Village is located right by the lake, the main mode of transport to get out of this village and to Nyaung-shwe (the township area) is of course… by long boat.
Also met tons of sweet puppies around the village. This one kept following me around for my crackers!
I trust people who are kind to stray animals 🙂