Also see: Our photography tour to Myanmar in October
It was a festival morning. About a hundred or so boats had gathered as a long thick band in the middle of the lake, waiting for the procession to pass by. A hundred boats would seem like a lot, but against the scale of the lake that is spread more than a hundred sq kilometers, the boats did not make up to much. As we approached the place of all the action, I heard the sound of bells at a distance to my left, somewhere in the vicinity of a monastery in Lin Kin Village. The procession was about to begin. Today’s procession was to take four Buddha idols of Phaung Daw Oo pagoda from Lin Kin to Nyaung Shwe town.
Inle Lake sets out for this festive celebrations every year in October-November months. The procession of Buddha images begins from their temple of residence–the Phaung Daw Oo pagoda–and crisscrosses every village in the lake taking eighteen days before returning home. Everyday, as Buddha moves from village to village, entire community gathers together to escort the parade with great fanfare. Every village decorates a long boat that will be part of the ‘boatcade‘. Each boat, carrying more than a hundred people rowing in sync to music, escort a gilded boat carrying the four golden Buddha images slowly glides over the lake. But one Buddha image continues to stay out of the festival.
Also see: my photography tour to Myanmar.
It was a pleasant October evening, but an unusual moment when I arrived in Mandalay. Our boat docked after a long journey upstream on Ayeyarwady, throwing us immediately into chaos that we weren’t prepared for. The road from jetty to the city was clogged with people in a celebratory mood. Loud speakers–giant black boxes decked on mini-trucks–blared loud and shrieking music on a road filled with revelers dancing wildly. Chaos, crowds and cacophony had conquered the road in a way I had never seen anywhere during my journeys across Myanmar.
Sunset hour at U-Bein Bridge, Amarapura, Mandalay.
In the last leg of our week-long trip in Myanmar that had taken us through the depths of a spiritual, graceful and congenial country, we had suddenly landed into an unexpected contrast. It was the last day of Durga Puja, and much of the Indian-descents in the city had gathered by the riverside for a procession and idol immersion. We got off the car, which we had barely boarded after alighting the boat that had ferried us from Bagan, and walked into the gathered crowd. Cameras strapped around our neck, we stood out as tourists in the completely-local crowd, and caught the attention of a few revelers in no time.
It has been a busy and silent month on the blog, thanks to an extensive travel calendar in South East Asia and the time that went in preparing for the journeys. In the first ten days of this month, I was in Cambodia, leading a photography tour across the country. Subsequently, I arrived in Myanmar and spent a few days strolling the streets of Yangon and visiting a few beautiful places nearby. Today is rest-day, and gives me some time to write this post.
Next week, I will be leading a photography tour through Myanmar before returning home. Another month later, I am out again on photography tours in Varanasi, North-East India and Rajasthan, ending my usual long streak of photo-journeys in winter.
Here is an image I made in Bago, Myanmar, two days ago – Mya Tha Lyaung sleeping Buddha.