Floating villages

If your livelihood is fishing, why bother to live on the shore? It's a lot easier to build your settlement out in the lake. This seems to be the logic a number of fishing communities have follow around Lac Nokoué. As the lake is very shallow in many places, people have simply built their houses, markets and shops on stilts mid-lake. African versions of Venice, where dug-out canoes have replaced the gondolas. The biggest village, Ganvié, is home to no less than 30.000 persons. It's also the closest of the villages to Cotonou and a favourite excursion for both locals, expats and tourists. As a result, don't expect a warm welcome once you arrive at the village, where the villagers most of all seem annoyed that their everyday life is enclosed upon. For a friendlier welcome opt for the smaller communities further afield.

Tonlé Sap is the biggest lake in Southeast Asia and is famous among biologists for its unusual river flow that changes direction twice a year. The rest of us, who don't have the time to sit down on the shore and wait until the water drains out or flows back, will have to settle with the equally unusual life on the lake. Floating villages like Chong Kneas of both Khmer, Cham and ethnic Vietnamese descent are spread out along the edge of the lake and can be visited on a boat trip. Beside the floating homes, there are a school (with basketball court), church, temple... and yes, tourist traps disguised as restaurants and crocodile farms. Don't mind the floating sellers with pet snakes, they are just a part the experience.

Inle Lake is a very pretty place and one of Myanmar's major attractions. The mountain lake (880 m) lies in the Shan State and is home to several unique things like the leg rowing fishermen, stilt villages with floating gardens, and the cat jumping monastery of Ngaphechaung. If you want to take in everything the lake has to offer, it will be a long day including a bit of sightseeing along the shores, where the golden stupas stand and the non-floating markets are. A must see if you choose to go to Myanmar.