Sunrise Breakfast on Inle Lake
Our first stop on our day tour of Inle Lake was sunrise breakfast in the middle of the lake. We enjoyed warm cups of coffee and sugarless doughnuts called jacqui. The idea is to sweeten them by dunking them in your sweet coffee or tea. We both enjoyed them. Life on a lake wouldn't be complete without some form of fishing to provide sustenance. Fishing sustains and provides a source of income for the inhabitants of the lake. Their methods also haven't changed much over the course of centuries. They still use a rudimentary trap made of bamboo that ensnares a fish in shallow water. Once trapped the fisher spears the fish with a four pronged spear also made of bamboo. Fishing with nets was another common type of fishing we noticed. However, unlike other netting methods we've seen in SE Asia the fishers here set their nets, travel upstream slightly, then scare the fish into their nets by slapping the water with long bamboo poles. What we didn't see were any modern rod and reel setups typically used in the West.
