Making Cane Sugar

While rambling around the countryside on bikes, near Inle Lake, we saw many many sugar operations. There were people planting new cane in the fields that had been plowed by buffalo. A narrow trench is formed and a long stem of old cane is laid end to end in the trench and it roots from the old stock.
I was really surprised at how high the mature cane was. Standing next to it, it towered over the head at least a body length. There were women harvesting and bundling the leaves to be used as fuel to boil the sap, carrying giant bundles on their heads. I'm going to digress a bit. While walking along streets in cities and towns we would hear tinkling bells. We followed our ears to find carts with primitive machines bearing bells that juiced the cane which people were drinking. The other place that we'd seen cane was Vietnam. People , especially hill tribe people, chew on it for the sweet juice and I suppose the sugar rush.
One day we rode our bikes far down the lake and walked up a huge hill to a forest temple. It was very beautiful up there but a little disappointing because the visibility wasn't so good. We had to leave our bikes halfway doown the hill as it was too steep to peddle up. When we came back we were beckoned into a sugar operation.
At one end, under a long roof, there were men operating a press that juiced the cane. The sap flowed along pipes into what looked like huge woks that were within another pot so that they could overflow. They bubbled away overflowing with gusto with a man standing at one end feeding the fire with a constant supply of leaves. After reaching a certain consistency the liquid flowed into another huge wok where it boiled and was beaten at the same time, much like the molasses taffy my grandmother used to make when I was young. The wok probably held about 5 gallons and I'm sure it was very hard work to beat it. When the desired thickness was achieved the liquid was poured over a sheet and spread out to about an inch thick. Once hardened they broke off big pieces for us to try. It was a bit like a sugary brown fudge. Very, very sweet. The whole operation was really hot and the people were sweating and hot. It was demanding physical work and I suspect they were working long, long hours.
They sent us on our way and we had a wonderful coast down the rest of the long hill to the floating village. A man approached us and asked if we would like to hire his boat to cross the lake. It was a grand idea which meant that we didn't have to backtrack and the heat of the day was less on the lake. We parked our bikes which would be loaded onto the boat and went out along a huge wooden walkway. The village was beautiful with many floating gardens and it was our first glimpse of the Inthe men rowing with one leg while balancing gracefully on the other. Our boat picked us up and we made our way across the lake. Luckily the ride home was more or less downhill because by then we were tired.