Inle Lake Boat Tour Chronicles Part 2

After a few hours of traveling by boat from Nyaung Shwe and across Inle Lake, we dock nearby a small wooden bridge without knowing why. Our boatman instructed us to get off the boat and wait at the small local shop. At first I thought that it was part of our itinerary until I realized that more boats were stopping by and we were actually stranded.

A lot of water lilies and other water plants piled up under the bridge and no boats could pass through. The local guys started pushing the plants towards the other end using a bamboo pole. We thought that it would probably just last for a few minutes so we just wandered around.

After more than an hour waiting, no boats still could pass through, most of the boatmen then started helping out the three locals guys who were clearing the path. There were so many plants stuck under the bridge that they weren’t able to clear it up.

They figured a quite tedious work around though, they started carrying instead the long tails boats above the pile of water lilies (without any passengers of course). All of the passengers then just boarded the boat at the other side of the river.

It was easy for the tourists boats since there’s nothing on the boat except five chairs. But it was a different stories for the boats carrying cargoes from another town (vegetables, pots, etc) since they would need to unload all the cargoes and carry the boat to the other side and then bring all the goods to the boat. I think they stayed longer as it would not be a good option and the only option I think hey have is to clear the water lilies. For the other tourist boats, they all opted to turn back instead of pushing through the journey.

Here are some pictures I took during the time we got stranded on our way to Sangkar:

Another tourist boat, not knowing that they’d be stranded as well for a couple of hours