Myanmar is a llittle developed. Travelers should avoid dubious food and water. Tourist visas run for 28 days and must be obtained outside the country. They are readily available from the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. There is no official Web site, though several private travel companies have them.
Many comprehensive guidebooks exist on Myanmar.
The most popular is published by Lonely Planet. By the standards of Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in Asia, the family is fairly well off, growing and catching much of their own food. They buy and sell goods at a moveable market that rotates every day between different villages along the lake. It's a chance for the lake dwellers, mostly from the ethnic Intha minority, to exchange goods with people from the hills, mostly ethnic Shans and smaller groups. On a recent day, the canal approaching the Mainthauk village market was filled with scores of canoes and motorized longboats docked against a floating island jetty leading to the shore.