Inle Lake, Myanmar

After spending 2 days in Bagan visiting the pagodas, our tour guard picked us from our hotel to the airport to continue our tour to Lake Inle the next morning.  It took us about an hour from Bagan airport to Heho airport .  From the airport we have to travel by van(1 hour drive) to the jetty before we can board the passenger  boat into Lake Inle.

Heho Airport

We board the passenger boat at the jetty, a boat can only seated with 6 people including the captain of the boat.

 This is one of the passenger boat going round the Inle Lake.

On the way to our hotel , we can see fishermen doing their catch in the lake.  To our knowledge, the fishermen in Inle Lake are the only fishermen  who use their ankles to row their boats while doing their fishing. This is the unique feature in Inle Lake.

Farmers scooping weeds from the lake for their farming. The weed as fertilizer for the farms.

Floating farms.  Another unique feature here.  According to our tour guard, the local here will cut a big piece of land from the side of the lake and drag it to the lake and do floating farming.  They have to use long bamboo sticks to stuck the piece of land into the shallow lake to prevent the land being float away.

Tomatoes are the most common vegetables planted in the floating farm, followed by cucumber, chili and local vegetables.

Floating houses and farms.

Our tour to Inle Lake include visit to some of the local cottage industries.  This is the traditional silk weaving.

Have anyone ever see tread make from lotus stem?  WE are really amazed to see this happening in front of our eyes. This lady use a knife to cut the stem of a lotus, twist a little and lightly pull, we can see the tiny silk like string being pull out. She will roll a few pull together to form tread. They will mix with silk to make their local costume.

The lotus tread

After the silk and lotus , we proceed to see the boat making.  At the same time we were able to see the traditional way of sawing wood.

On the road , we can see taxi station, bus station and railway station, but here we can see only boat station.

The next visit was the iron smith. They still using the olden way to make knifes and cutters.

Long necked women in Lake Inle.  There are only 5 such ladies left here.  They are the same as those we found in Nothern Chiangmei in Thailand.

After saying goodbye to the long necked women, we proceed to see the primitive way of melting silver and made into various silver wares and jewelery.

Finally, we were able to check into the hotel,Golden Island Cottage after completing our tour in Inle Lake. It was almost 5pm when we landed in the floating hotel.  There are 13 such hotels in this lake,according to our tour guard. All these hotels are very special because they are built in the lake but not on an in of land.

The environment is so...so clean and the air is so fresh....so natural.....so quite.. so peaceful.

This is one of the twin sharing cottage.  The beds were attached with mosquito net because there are many insects at night.  The place is so natural that the hotel do not install any fans or conditionals.  The electricity will cut off at 12 midnight.

The beautiful sunset at the hotel.

We spent a night in Lake Inle and really enjoyed the real quietness of this place.  We found that the people here are so humble and contented with what they have and their daily routines.  People here are mostly farmers and fishermen and some of the local cottage industries.

After a quite and good night rest, we were pick up by the boat at 7.30am after breakfast to proceed to the jetty(1 hour ride) to catch the van to the airport(1 hour drive) to fly back to Yangon. Upon arriver , we were pick up by my brother;s driver to check into City Golf Resort for our last night stay here.  After our rest, the driver came and send us to a restaurant to have dinner with my brother and family.

After our final packing the next morning, the driver came with my sister-in-law to send us to the airport to catch our flight home.  Finally we touch Malaysian ground at about 4,30pm.

It was a very interesting tour, from the busy city to a poor country side,the people in the country sides are very innocent and pure and poor,and the gap between the very rich and the poor is very big, just like many other countries in the world.

A trip to Myanmar(burma)

Its been a long time since I am in this blog after Chinese New year.  Was busy and travelling.  This time make a trip to visit my brother and sis-in-law in Yangon. My son and 2 other friends came along with me.
We flew from Klia direct to Yangon, the flight took about 2 and 1/2 to reach our destination.  The time different in Yangon and back home is 11/2 hr behind time.  This is the end of winter and we can fill the heat once we were out of the airport.  Myanmar has 3 seasons, winter(Oct to Feb),summer(mar to jun) and raining season(July to Sept).  The temperature can go as high as 38 or even 40 degree F .  During our stay for 6 days we experience the temp between 19 to 38 degree F.  Morning is very cool will its hot like oven in the afternoon, the air con in the bus or car can't even cool down the temperature in the vehicles.
We were welcome by my sis-in-law's sister (winsome) at the airport as my sis_in-law(Judith) was busy with her meeting.  Once were at Judith's house, she got to photostat our passport to report to the police station, this the procedure if any visiting relatives are stay with the locals.  Unfortunately, the police station called and said we were not allow to stay with them!  So we have to move to hotel.  Judith manages to book us into City Golf Resort near the airport for only US28 per night under cooperate rate.
After settling down , Judith arrange with her driver to take us for gems stone shopping in Scott market, May & Mark and Gem museum.

My friends, Evelyn and Emily bought the most of the gems, but I don't fancy all these, finally they bought Sapphire, ruby and some jades too. real shopping. We brought not enough cash(all in USD), we have to loan from my brother. The business man in Myanmar don't accept credit cards.
The next day, we went to visit the famous Shwedagon Pagoda, it seem they placed the biggest diamond on top of the highest point of the pagoda. I can't see it even watch by the telescope provided, but other said they can see the sparkle sometimes depend on the sunlight shine from which directions.

From Yangon , we joined a local to Bagan and Lake Inle.  We flew to Bagan airport by focus airplane. This is my first flight in my life in this type of plane.

 A simple and small airport of Bagan

The first pagoda that we visit in Bagan, there are more then 2000 various sizes of pagodas in Bagan.  There is a saying if any tourist do not visit Bagan just like he/she never been to Myanmar.

some of the smaller pagodas.

A visit to the local market.  Can see all the organic vegetables.

Palm sugar

Local grown onions

Organic carrots

Unbleached cooking oil

Ladies making fermented tea, one of the appetizer before meals

Lots of river fishes from the river

All the big fishes

Using traditional weighing machine

Smallest egg plants i have ever seen

Dried fresh fishes(not salted fish)

Some more pagodas that go back to as early as 11th century, some of the pagodas were so strong that they can survive during the last 2 earthquakes.

Watching sun set on top of one of the pagodas.

We had 2 nights stay in this chalet, very comfortable and beautiful

Sun set by the riverside at our chalet.  Our next destination will be Lake Inle. I will continue in the next blog.

White Carrot or Loh pak koa

Chinese New Year is just around the corner.  As usual I will bake some of my popular cookies like pineapple rolls, cashew nuts cookies, green peas cookies and fry arrow head chips . This year I wanted to add another goodies , that is white carrot cake (loh pak koa).  In fact I wanted to steam this cake for the last CNY but the carrot was overpriced as the supply was limited.  Fortunately, the carrot is very cheap this year, is only RM 4.00 per kilogram.

I got the recipe from my close friend, Agnes. She steam carrot cake every year as this is the tradition and a must for her family.  She will usually steam the cake 2 days before CNY and I did as her.
I got all the necessary ingredients as follow

ingredients
360 g carrots

40   g (tang mee fun)
40   g corn flour
525 g rice flour
750 g water 

220 g oil of fried onion(5) and garlic(5pips) oil
80   g Chinese sausage
80   g dried prawns
1/2 tbs fried garlic

2 tsp salt
3tsp chicken granules
60 g sugar
1125 g water

Wash and shredded the carrot and boil in hot water for  5 minutes. Drain and squeeze out the excess water. Set aside.

Mix all the flours in the measured water and set aside for later use.
Wash the onions and garlics, slightly crush and pat dry.  Heat up the oil and fry the onions and garlics until fragrant, drain and let the oil cool.
Next, prepare the Chinese sausage and dried prawns.  Par boil the sausage and peel off the covering the it, chopped into small sizes.  Presoak the dried prawns and chopped as the size of Chinese sausage.
In another bowl, mix the seasoning of salt, sugar and chicken granule into the water and set aside for later use.
In a sauce pan, pour in all the prepared ingredients and cook on slow fire for about10 to 15 minutes or until the mixture thicken.

 Remove from fire and pour into prepared tin with grease prove paper  and steam for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until is cooked.

When is cook, remove from steaming and let cool.  Cut into small sizes so that can be kept in container to place in the refrigerator for anytime when you feel like to eat the cake.
I fried some for 1st day of Chinese New Year for breakfast, really taste good with some Kampong Koh chili sauce.  Yum..yum I love it and it is a success fro my first try.

Cheryl and Nicole

My brother flew back from Myanmar with his wife and 2 lovely daughters for holidays.  It was Cheryl birthday on the 6th of Jan while Nicole's fall on the 14th.  From the mother, I know all of them like cheesecake, I decided to bake oleo cheesecake(recipe from the label cheesecake) for both of the beautiful and lovely girls.

After baking, cool the cake completely, I prepared chocolate garnache to cover the whole cake.  Let set.  I decorated with butter cream borders and some fondant flowers, teddy bears and lady buds. My writing were no good because my hand was shivering, I have to improve in this a lot.

The were so happy to cut their favorite cheesecake. They love the cake so much that they ate up both the fondant teddy bears and lady buds.



Welcome 2011

We were invited for a new year countdown party in Sungai Siput, about 40 minutes drive away from Ipoh. I decided to bake a butter cake with some decorations.;(butter cake recipe from my earlier post)
This is result of my 2011 party cake.

There were many other home cook food prepared by out host and visitors.

We had fried chicken, fish fillet salad, assam curry fish head, blended fish paste stuff in bitter guards, jelly, fried beehoon, curry chicken, deserts too and so many more.  We all enjoyed our food and fellowship until midnight when the minute has come for countdown.  Well, another year has pass and we have to welcome the new year no matter how or where, the days has to go on.  I hope everyone will have a healthy and happy new year.

Light Fruit Cake

Christmas is coming, i wanted to bake a fruit cake for this festive season.  Finally found a recipe from the Internet and I was very happy that it was a success and I like it very much.  Here are the ingredients needed:

the ingredients
120g butter
120 g sugar
sift together
140g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
combine together
250g raisins
250g sultanas
75g mic peels
120 g glazed cherries,chopped
100g walnuts, chopped
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup rum.(to soak raisins overnight)

First is to preheat the over to 170 degrees C.  Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time and beating well after each adding.  Stir in vanilla essence.  Gently fold in sifted dry ingredients.  Mix until the flour is well in cooperated.
In a separate bowl, mix together the dry fruits and nuts with a dash of flour. Fold in the mixture into the butter mixture.
Pour into lines cake tin and bake for about 1 and a half hour or until its done.
Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool in pan for 30 minutes, then turn cake onto wire rack and remove greaseproof paper, turn the cake back to top side.
Completely cool the cake, brush a little rum on the cake and store it wrapped in foil in airtight container. Let cake ripen for 1 to 2 weeks before serving.