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.

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

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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.

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The festival is celebrated, like other pagoda festivals in Myanmar, at Mya-Tha-Lon pagoda, which is situated on the bank of Ayeyarwaddy River, in Magway. Always start from the 10th of Thi-din-kyut for 20 days, the festival is alive with the mass of people who are offering nutrients to Buddhist monks as well as 9000 oil lamps to the pagoda, and the view of those enormous lamps creates the implausible beauty of the pagoda together with the pleasant night scenes of the Ayeyarwaddy. Massive crowd, Burmese conventional operas and many shops along the lane near the pagoda bestow participants’ unforgettable motion and experiences.

Kyauktawgyi Paya Festival is one of the largest festivals in Mandalay usually held in October and locals and foreign visitors are crowded at such a time. This festival usually begins one day before the fullmoon day of Thadingyut and its focus is a huge Buddha image carved from a block of marble. This festival is for all pagodas at the foot of Mandalay Hill with a multitude of stalls, especially Zat entertainment, the offering of filled alms bowls to thousands of monks. The festival coincides with an annual competition among teams of cane-ball(chinlon) players.

Dancing Elephant Festival is one of the famous festivals in Myanmar. It is held in Kyaukse surrounded by paddy fields and 30 miles (50 km) to the south of Mandalay. Elephant dance competition is celebrated at annual Light Festival on full moon day of Thadingyut mostly in October. Competition of decorated cloth elephant dancing with two men inside, giving the gold prize to the winner.

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Manuha pagoda festival is one of the famous festivals in Bagan. The festival is held annually one day before the Full Moon Day of Tawtalin. The Myinkaba region dwellers donate rice cakes and pickled winter melon to the visitors during the festival.

Thadingyut is the seventh month of the Myanmar calendar (roughly coinciding with October). Monks who spend three months of lent, from the full moon day of Wazo to the full moon day of Thadingyut, at their monasteries can now travel freely to spread the Teachings of the Lord Buddha. Thus, the Thadingyut festival marks the end of Lent and is one of the biggest festivals on the Buddhist calendar.

This festival commemorates the time when the Buddha returned to earth after preaching in the abode of celestials during the three months of lent. He descended at night and devotees greeted Him with lamps and lanterns. People light candles around their houses and in the streets and homes are decorated with colourful lights. Pagodas, houses, public buildings, parks and monuments are all illuminated and there are various activities for everyone to enjoy.

A tradition of Thadingyut, or October is that younger members of the family or the office or schools pay obeisance(Kadaw) to their elders and teachers. They pay obeisance by kneeling on the floor, holding their joined palms to the forehead bending odwn three times to touch the floor, in the same manner as respect is paid to an image of the Buddha. This ritual is also performed on the traditional New Year, which falls in April. It is normal for children to ‘Kadaw’  their parents every night before they go to bed or before leaving on a journey.