This festival is a regional Nat festival, keepers of the Ayeyarwaddy River. After harvest time, hundreds of farmers, wearing colourful dresses, arrive with their beautifully decorated bullock carts at the Myatheindan Pagoda. They build a big tent as temporary housing for the nat images. During these days the mediums perform Nat Dances in order to be granted a good harvest for the next season and to the delight of hundreds of spectators. Can observe several kinds of ceramic wares from Sagaing and Kyaukmyaung are laid out at the bank of the river for sale during the festival.

This  festival is known as a major gathering spot for spiritual mediums. Hundreds of believers and mediums (natkadaw) come once a year to Taung Byone. It is the most impressive Nat festival in Myanmar.

Taung Pyone is the site where two brother serving a king of Bagan in the 11^th century were executed. They became powerful spirits or Nat. This festival in their honor is attended by tens of thousands of mediums and worshipers. A ritual is celebrated each day. Toddy palm wine, whisky, rum, grilled rabbit and fried chicken are offered to the two spirit brothers. Orchestras come to play for the mediums who dance to make the spirits joyful.

Myanmar is a land of festivals. They reflect the cultural diversity of the country’s many ethnic groups. The Taung Pyone festival this month is a colorful event celebrating the traditions and beliefs of the Myanmar people and paying tribute to the venerated nats, or spirits. Myanmar people believe that nats can bring good omens, foresee the future and provide guidance. Taung Pyone, which dates back to the Bagan period and is one of Myanmar’s biggest festivals, draws hordes of visitors who believe nats from all over the country come to enjoy the celebrations.

The most important spirit or nat festival is the Taung Pyone Festival held in August or September each year. This ancient village near Mandalay was where the two brothers Min Gyi and Min Galay were unfairly executed so it is their main shrine. Eleven days of rituals are conducted by officials. Dressed in silks and stins, and made up as if for traditional dance performance, spirit mediums dance while being possessed, and the spirit in them ‘eats’ the food offered by smelling, although with drinks such as whisky they can drink up the whole bottle in several swallows without the medium getting drunk. A traditional orchestra of a drum circle, oboe, cymbals, brass gongs and the big drum accompanies the dances with music especially composed for the spirits. Mediums dance and sing while cash notes are pined to the medium’s jacket by the donors and more tossed to the musicians and spectors.

The Yadana Gu Nat Festival is also known as Mother of Taung Byone festival. One of the reasons why this event is enjoyable is the necessity of travelling to the festival site by boat. The festival is held each year to honour Medaw (Mother of the two Lords), Mewanna.

This event is held immediately after the Taung Byone festival, near Mandalay, wich attracts thousands of mediums and devotees who pay homage to the power of nats. Every year, the festival starts on the 10 days after full moon day of the Myanmar month of Wagaung and lasts about five days.

The Yadana Gu Pagoda festival and Yadana Gu Nat festival are held simultaneously. During the festivals, boats carrying offerings and filled with dancers and musicians perform in homage to the nats ply the Ayeyarwady  River near Mandalay and Amarapura. Most of the pilgrims are from Mandalay, Amarapura, Tada Oo, Sagaing and Monywa.

This one is known as mother of Taung Byone. Most enjoyable festival because of the rowing boat trip to the site. The festival is held annually in honor of Mt.Popa.

This festival honours the mother of the two spirit brothers reffered to above. She is the Goddess of Popa and her main shrine is on Popa Crest, near Bagan. She too is a powerful spirit and protector of women.

Pagoda festival with a multitude of stalls, entertainments such as Zats, Anyeints, stage show and movies shown in the open air the whole night coming by ox-carts near villages.

The Bo Bo Gyi nat festival is one of Myanmar’s famous annual festivals and runs for 12 days. Bo bo Gyi, also known as Myint Phyu Shin, is one of 37 spirits in the nat pantheon which predates which predates Buddhism but has long been integrated into indigenous religious belied. The ritual of offering food to the spirit is the main event of this festival.

Bo Bo Gyi is known as the Rider of the White Horse and is a poltergeist who provides protection from danger and enemies. On the eve of the ceremony, devotees throw packets of tea leaves at each other. Those who are hit must pledge to attend the following year’s festival.

The celebrations start at the entrance to the village, on the altar of Myin Hpyu Shin Bo Bo Gyi. In accordance with custom, villagers prepare five sets of trays, each with seven vegetables and seven pieces of pork.The offerings must be carefully arranged and include steamed rice, tri-coloured glutinous rice and rice formed into animal-shaped cakes.Other staples are pumpkin,coconut,banana,dried fish and fried chilies, garnished with tea leaves and betel nut. The main feature is the pork, which is served on its own or minced into porridge. Offering pork to Bo Bo Gyi is a unique feature of the event because offerings of pork are taboo at other nat festivals.

The Bo Bo festival is also unique for being alcohol-free: alcohol is regarded as an essential offering to the nats at other festivals. Devotees at the Bo Bo Gyi  festival do not sing or dance. They simply cook together, worship together and enjoy the food offerings with friends, family, relatives and pilgrims visiting from other areas. The participants believe that they will enjoy health, happiness and good luck.

This Buddhist ceremony is held at the ancient pagoda complex annually. The complex comprises of thousands of stupas. It is located on a canal away from the main body of Inle lake and surrounded by bamboo forests.

source: Magical Myanmar

Four of the Hpaung Daw Oo Pagoda’s five Buddha images are carried on a golden barge to spend the night at villages around Inle Lake. Their arrival at the villages is greeted with ceremonies and rejoicing. Thousands of people from communities around the lake and villages in the surrounding mountains carry offerings of fruit and flowers on lacquer trays in boats and pay homage as the holy barge passes. Teams of the lake’s famous leg-rowers compete in annual boat races and it is the one and only place in the world.

One significant of its festivities is the procession of four Buddha images, flanked and followed by more than two dozen longboats that are paddled by  literally hundreds of boatmen around the Inle Lake, a large area of freshwater popular with local travelers as well as those from many foreign countries.

The festivities take 18 days, beginning of end of September and wrapping them up in early October. Most of the year, the images together with the fifth one are enshrined at the Phaung Daw Oo pagoda or temple in Nyaung Shwe township, Taunggyi  District. During the procession, the four images deformed with heavy applies of gold leaves over by devotees stop each and every village in and along the Lake’s shores in order to allow villagers to pay homage to.