The Phaung Daw Oo Buddha Festival

 Yesterday we attended the Phaung Daw Oo Buddha Festival, which takes place every year at Inle Lake, Southern Shan State. The festival includes a procession of 36 boats rowed by hundreds of Intha men leading a huge barge in the shape of Myanmar’s mythical Hintha bird. The Hintha carries four Buddha images around the lake for 26 days so that the villagers can pay homage. We joined the procession at Nyaung Shwe where the images have resided for two days. They were carried reverently from the monastery by a group of officials. People thronged both sides of the road as each image on its own palanquin was carried to the quay.

We arrived at the quay walking on pink lotus strewn carpets and watched the procession arrive. The images are carried by dignitaries dressed in white: Shan trousers, jackets and gaung baung, the special hats they wear for official occasions.

One very old and dignified man in white is helped along by men on either side of him. I was told he was the sawbwa whose title used to be hereditary, but now the community chooses a prominent member of the town.

The crowd stopped jostling and some even stepped back in reverence, others strewed what looked like white popcorn as offerings as the images were carried past. The images appeared heavy as the men lowered them from their palanquins into the boat. However, I was assured they weigh not much more than a kilogram. The images are no longer recognisable as statues of the Buddha. They resemble, as one person said, golden balls. Their rotund almost cuddly appearance is due to the gifts they have been given over the centuries by the population. The gifts are uniformly gold leaf.

The Hintha is towed by another magnificent barge. When it nears the village of Mine Thauk the rope will be cut and a good nat (nats are part of Myanmar’s spirit world) will guide the boat into the village. A good nat or a miracle or a current? Who knows!

In the old days the Hintha visited 6 villages in 6 days staying one night in each. Now the procession visits 22 villages and takes 26 days. It stays a little longer at Nyaung Shwe, because that is where the sawbwa comes from.

As well as Nyaung Shwe, the images will also visit Indein, Heyar, Nanthi, Nampan, Nyaungdaw and Ywargyibanpone. The images must stay at least one night in each place. At the end of the festival, the images must be returned to the Phaung Daw Oo Monastery.

Boats are skimming up and down the lake all vying for a good view of the Hintha. A boat full of Pa-O women, in their distinctive green and blue turbans, are chanting prayers in Sanskrit. A boat full of schoolgirls near them are doing the same.

At the front of the procession longboats with about 60 men in each are rowing in the distinctive Intha way. They row with one leg and one arm thus leaving the other arm free to tend their nets. Along the way, families sit in their boats watching the spectacular flotilla sail past. Some families have gifts to offer to the Buddha.

The Hintha moves off the quay into the main channel heading towards Mine Thauk. Our boatman revs his engine and we are racing down a tiny channel made narrow by enthusiast water hyacinth that grows all around the edges of Inle Lake. It is a scourge in many parts of the world but the people here use it and other weeds as a platform for their floating gardens.

We race on and re-enter the main channel in front of the procession, which is now more than a mile long. All the villagers have come in their boats to watch too. In all, there are more than 100 boats. In addition to rowers, in the middle of each boat, are dancers –all men, as no women are allowed on board. They are bowing and swaying with graceful hand movements to the sound of traditional music of gongs and cymbals. The excitement is palpable.

We see something in the sky. Could it be a good nat (or even a bad nat?)  It turns out to be a drone, maybe taking photos, someone suggests.

Men on the boats wear uniform. All wear Shan pants and tunics, but some have white tunics along with their cinnamon pants. Each boat has coloured umbrellas some white, some green and some gold. Usually gold is reserved for royalty or funerals but here it is allowed for decoration. Not all the boats are rowed by Intha: Shan boatman row in the usual unremarkable way yet they seem just as tired when they pass the entrance to the village of Mine Thauk and they relax on their oars and simply drift to a halt.

In the time of the early sawbwas there were five images that toured the lake by boat. But on one terrible occasion a hurricane erupted, the boat was swamped and one of the images lost. Everyone returned to the Paung Daw Oo Monastery very sadly. But a good nat must have been present. because in the Monastery the people found the missing image. Since that time the people thought they must leave one image in the monastery to prevent hurricanes. So they left the one that had been lost last time.  Ever since only four images are carried around each year and until the present time there have been no more hurricanes.

Navy blue clouds appear overhead. This is the end of the rainy season so we don’t expect a hurricane and the fifth Buddha image is in the monastery - still it doesn’t hurt to be careful so after the last boat of the procession passed we turned and made our way back to Nyaung Shwe without even a drop of rain.