Hidden away in the southern part of Shan state, Myanmar, stretches a remarkable shallow-water lake. Famous for its mirror-like surface, dense marshes and stunning temples, Inle is home to the Intha, the ‘Sons of the Lake’. These fishermen and farmers originally lived in Southern Myanmar, but probably migrated to the area in the 14th century. They now make up part of a unique community of hill-tribes, fishermen and traders that thrives around this stunning lake.
The Intha first attracted the attention of the outside world by virtue of their unique method of propelling their tiny canoes around the lake. Rather than sitting and rowing, Intha fisherman stand at one end of their boat, pushing through the water using a leg braced against the single oar. 
This quite uncomfortable-looking style of rowing has evolved so that the leg-rower can spot floating mats of weed or the bubbles from feeding fish, as well as lay out nets and maneuver their unusual, conical fish traps. The fishermen of Inle use these traps to catch small carp, known as nga hpein, which when kneaded with lightly fermented rice and potato, make up their staple dish, htamin gyin.
The leg-rowing fishermen may have first caught the attention of the tourists, but fishing is only one small part of Inle Lake life. As land is at a premium, the Intha have long cultivated floating gardens, built up of lake weed and silt and used to grow crops of tomatoes and other vegetables. The gardens are anchored to the bottom of the lake with bamboo poles, explaining the slightly surreal sight of fields of poles that greets visitors to the floating gardens. Pigs are raised in small sties built on stilts in the floating villages and fed on a particular type of weed that grows in the lake. Rice is also grown in the natural paddy fields of the lake margins and cheroot 
workshops and blacksmiths fuel a substantial trade with the Pa’O, Shan and Taungyo villages of the surrounding hills.
The Intha also have a long tradition of weaving and produce a cloth famous throughout Myanmar. The cotton Inle Longyi, or Zin me, was probably inspired by royal Cambodian ikat cloth but is now more influenced by thai and Indonesian designs, as well as the demand from tourists for colourful flowers and birds. Silks brought in from China and Thailand are used to produce luxurious cloth that is sold across Myanmar but it is one particular material that has made the weavers of Inle particularly well known – the lotus cloth that is unique to the area and is used to produce ceremonial robes for Buddha images and monks.
The tradition of the lotus robe goes back many centuries. According to Myanmar Therevada Buddhists, when this world came into being five lotus buds appeared, each with a complete set of Thingan Pareikayan hidden inside. The Thingan Pareikayan are a prescribed set of articles used by a monk and so it was prophesised that five Buddhas would appear, to show the world the path to liberation and enlightenment. 
The buds, and the robes they contained, were given to Thuddawartha Brahmins to hold in safekeeping and offer to potential Buddhas when they appeared on the earth. According to legend, only four have so far been offered and Myanmar Buddhists celebrate a symbolic offering of the fifth lotus robe to Buddha images and to important monks.
The weaving process traditionally begins in May or June, when the lotus plants are at their most abundant, and for a week before they are harvested the plants are offered a series of nine different dishes of food. The freshly cut stems are marked into short sections and by twisting and pulling these apart, the lotus fibres are exposed and immediately rolled on a short table. The long threads produced are then spun and washed, ready for weaving into cloth. But not just anybody can work on the loom used – according to tradition, whilst the weaver doesn’t have to be a virgin it is better if she is a woman of virtue and lives her life strictly according to the five precepts of Buddhist teaching.
The perfect robe consists of an outer piece, or Agyathi, which is 2.5 yards long, and a Thinbine worn beneath the Agyathi, which is 6 yards long. 
To weave this amount of cloth takes a village of 60 weavers 10 days of work, and the process as a whole, from cutting the stems, spinning, washing and
cutting the cloth, can take nearly a month. Nowadays the robes may be spectacularly coloured and have metallic fibres woven in to enhance their beauty and worth. However, the most celebrated qualities of these robes are still the simplest – their strength and lightness, as well as their fragrance of freshly cut lotus.
As Myanmar opened up to tourists in the 80’s and 90’s, Inle Lake became a well established destination and the weavers of Kyaingkhan village on the west side of the lake began to produce lotus fibre material for tourists. 
The lotus is now woven with silk to produce a huge range of stunning fabrics, but the Padonma Kyathingan Collective of Kyaingkhan village, named after the Padonma or red lotus that is normally used for weaving, still produces traditional lotus robes.
Today the weavers, fishermen and traders of Inle face a less certain future. The lake itself has shrunk by a third in the last 60 years or so, a problem partially blamed on the success of the floating gardens. Increased pollution has also begun to take its toll. The modern use of pesticides and fertilizers has led to a decline in fish stocks, forcing fishermen to turn to farming and so slowly increase the use of the very chemicals responsible for the decline in fish catches in the first place. This vicious circle is exacerbated by pollution from the growing human population around the lake and the clearing of the forests from the surrounding hills – runoff and siltation of parts of the lake is now becoming a more serious problem.
However the biggest problem faced by this remarkable area is the stability of the country as a whole. Since 1988, when pro-democracy protests were brutally put down by the military government, the lives of the people of Myanmar have been tightly controlled. The opposition party leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under almost constant house arrest since 1990, has long advocated an anti-tourism campaign and with the recent troubles in September 2007, tourist numbers have dropped dramatically. Without this source of income, both the people of Myanmar, and its government, have suffered.
However, as Aung San Suu Kyi said:
‘Burma will be here for many years, so tell your friends to visit us later. Visiting now is tantamount to condoning the regime.’
In the interim what we need to ensure is that the people of Inle Lake and Myanmar as a whole, with their unique lifestyles and remarkably generous hospitality - are not forgotten by the outside world.
