The picturesque Inle Lake, where beds with tomatoes are located directly in the water

Not everyone has the opportunity to grow fresh vegetables: someone lives in the desert, someone in a high-mountainous rocky region, but someone in a densely populated place where there is simply no free land. But representatives of the Intha people, who live on the shores of Lake Inle, came up with an original solution to the land issue: they learned how to build floating gardens directly on the surface of the lake.

Inle Lake is located in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and has an area of 116 sq. Km. It is very shallow (maximum depth of 3.7 meters with an average of 1.5 meters), but at the same time a fairly clean reservoir rich in fish. The lake and its environs are included in the list of the most visited tourist regions in the country. Representatives of the Intha (Inta) people live on its shores, who build unusual houses on stilts and build floating gardens.

Locals live in houses above the water, between which they move in narrow maneuverable boats. The houses are mostly single-story, but wealthy inhabitants of Inle Lake can build themselves and two-story houses on stilts, there is no difficulty.

The main occupation of Intha is fishing and everything related to the tourism business, from boat rental to rental housing. There are 17 settlements on the shores of the lake, in each of which there is something to see. An interesting technique for moving on boats is common here, in which one leg is used for rowing, while the hands are free, the person is not constrained in movements and can fish more productively.

But, in fact, there are stilt houses, souvenir shops and boats in many corners of the planet, but floating gardens are a real miracle of Inle Lake. Floating islets are built from grass and roots, over which a fertile layer of silt is poured. To prevent these beds from floating away, they are fixed with wooden poles. In such gardens, cucumbers and cabbage, tomatoes and various greens grow beautifully.

Between the beds they also move in boats, which are easily controlled by both men and women.

On the shores of this amazing lake live representatives of the Padaung people, whose women wear massive rings around their necks. We wrote about this tradition in more detail in one of our previous materials.