One of the most colourful festivals in the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar, involving scores of rowed boats and a spectacular gold-gilded barge, is being celebrated this month after a three-year hiatus due to the Covid pandemic and violent political instability.
Inle is famous for its fishermen, who practice a unique style of rowing while standing with one leg wrapped around a single oar(Thein Zaw/AP)
Inntha ethnic people row on a long boat in a procession carrying Buddha images to a monastery during the pagoda festival in Inlay Lake, southern Shan State, Myanmar, on Thursday (Thein Zaw/AP)
Their skills are full display during the annual Phaung Daw Oo pagoda festival, which lasts almost three weeks (Thein Zaw/AP)
The fishermen row their boats to pull the Karaweik barge, an ornate vessel with a golden image of a mythical bird at its bow that carries four statues of Buddha to tour 21 villages around the lake so that people can pay homage to them.
Local people sit in their boat to watch proceedings (Thein Zaw/AP)
Locals watch from their house (Thein Zaw/AP)
Hundreds of local residents on Thursday observed the activities from small craft on the lake, and more from onshore.
The festival is being celebrated despite armed conflict across much of Myanmar, as the army seeks to quash resistance to its takeover in February 2021 that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Opponents of army rule urged people not to attend the festival because the military could use it as a propaganda to claim that the country is back to normal under its control (Thein Zaw/AP)
There were no incidents reported at the festival, where security was tight, but very few foreign tourists attended (Thein Zaw/AP)
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
