Travel tales: Maha Muni Pagoda Festival, Mandalay

Myanmars love festivals: the more, the better and ones when they can show charity they love most of all. So today was popular for the people and for the 833 monks that they had invited to come to the Maha Muni to receive supplies that would last the monastery most of the year. This is in addition to the cooked food every household, shop and restaurant gives to fill the monks’ thabik – crudely known to foreigners as begging bowls – every morning.

The lane that leads from the road to the paya (pagoda) has been transformed into an enormously long shopping mall. Thick bamboo poles hold up the tarpaulin roof and papier mache has been transformed into walls painted yellow with pink and green motifs. Every table and on mats on the floor are piled high packets of instant noodles, Lux soap, biscuits and huge bags of rice.

In some areas the monks shuffle along in orderly rows approaching the gifts, in others it is almost impossible for them (or us) to move because the crowd is so dense. A traditional orchestra is housed on a high podium hung about with yellow satin. There are two huge, golden bedecked drums, a wind instrument that resembles a combination of a clarinet and a trumpet. The players wear costumes and jaunty caps of the days of the Myanmar kings in their palaces. The singer, or chanter, has an enormously loud microphone. I ask Win Kyaing if he is chanting prayers, but no, he is telling the crowd how much he admires those who give to the monks. Later a lady singer, with a powerful voice also, joins him. I move to a quieter spot and sit on a mat in the shade to do some writing. Oh, someone wants to practice his English on me. I am a sitting duck, but my new friend soon runs out of words and I can write again.

It is very easy to get lost in the packed and jostling crowd. Nevertheless, Win Kyaing has to leave me to go off to take photos. This year it is easier for him to be find me as I am a speck of white hair against an ocean of black!