Inle Lake Part Two - How Long Can you Tread Water?
Inle Lake, Mynamar
At 7:30 a.m. the next morning I exited my room into the refreshingly the cool haze and walked through the gauntlet of jabbering lake guides and touts along the river to my arranged boat at the far end of town. I was mildly surprised upon arrival that my captain and guide wasn’t going to be the woman I met the day before, but her brother. Unlike the smiling, likeable woman, the brother was sour and serious, seemingly unhappy about the prospect of guiding a tourist around all day. He lightened up considerably when I engaged him in conversation, unleashing the full gamut of my Myanmar conversational phrases, and we were pals from there on out.
Cigar making When I got to the hotel Mr. China and one of his cronies was waiting for me. Since a throw down right there in the lobby would have been socially uncool and possibly resulted in me losing my only ride to the Junction, I held my tongue until we were practically at the Junction. I started out by asking him about the discrepancy in the price of the bus ticket. He countered saying that the price I had gotten was for a different company and that my more expensive ticket was on a better bus. Then I unloaded on him in quick succession over his inflated boat tour price, his bum-rushing me into the more expensive hotel and the seemingly over-priced taxi ride into town when I first arrived. By now we were at the Junction, so I closed the show on his non-stop theater of lies with a flourish by going after him about his supposed name. I had him on his heels, he was stuttering and making lame excuses. Finally, sensing all else was lost, he locked onto the bus ticket issue, swearing that he had not padded it. Having caught him at a half dozen lies already I wasn’t in the mood for this. I told him that in lieu of his actions that I was only going to give him 2,000 kyat for the ride to the junction, take it or leave. He whined that 2,00 wouldn’t pay for the gas, but again I was convinced that he was a sorry liar and I had no sympathy. He finally accepted when I mentioned that I would talk to the MTT (Myanmar Travel and Tours, the gummet’s tourist arm) office about him. He relented took the money, and asserted one last time in his defense that I go to the bus office and check the price of the ticket.
With him out of my hair, I sat down at the café in front of the bus stop, ordered a meal and took out my book to pass the 90 minutes I had to wait for my bus. After an interval of calming down I decided to wander over to the phone booth-sized shack that functioned as the bus ticketing office to check the price of the ticket. When I asked the woman she hesitated for a second, narrowed her eyes and said “6,000 kyat,” the price Mr. China had charged me. So, I was left with three possibilities; either Mr. China had gotten her in on the plot while I wasn’t looking, she herself was padding the price for a little payday at my expense or Mr. China wasn’t lying for once. My terminal and often ass-biting desire to want to believe people are being honest whenever possible ate at me and I finally resolved that perhaps Mr. China had not lied about this one detail. As if on cue, the man himself strolled past the restaurant and I ran out to tell him I had confirmed the bus ticket price. I apologized about chastising him in that regard, while reiterating that I still wasn’t too happy about the rest of his scams and it would behoove him to take a slightly less predatory approach to his future clients to avoid similar confrontations. Finally feeling at peace I ate my dinner and eventually boarded my over-night bus to Mandalay.
