From the early morning to around 6:30 pm, parents are busy harvesting watermelons and vegetables, which will be sold in the main town.

Happy holidays and best wishes for a wonderful new year!

Having the day off suddenly, I didn’t have anything planned and decided I should visit my local pagoda and take in the atmosphere. As luck would have it, the Shwedagon Pagoda is a brief 20-minute stroll through the People’s Park from my house. What better pagoda to have as your local for the celebrations. 

I heard the trip to Man Aung Island is rough and was a bit concerned what I would do if the ship sunk in the sea.

After an early breakfast at a teacher’s house, we went to the 7 am meeting where the villagers were sitting under the trees near the monastery.

One of teachers from the village frequently phoned me to warn that I should come earlier as the sea waves were bigger in the evening.

Photo: “Rakhine Thingyan” by Zin Ko Naing (CC BY NC ND 2.0)

This week heralded in the long-awaited Water Festival. Also celebrated in Thailand, this is one of those religious festivals that has become a byword for lavish, hedonistic party time.

When we discussed what my mum wanted to visit in Myanmar, I listed the usual tourist sights: Shwedagon, Bagan, Mandalay, and the Golden Rock teetering on a seemingly gravity-defying point. However, my mother wanted to get a feel for the Myanmar that I knew and worked with. So, we went to Yangon and to Sittwe.

A lot of monks teach in Myanmar; they typically have more education than lay people and they are more able to provide for those less fortunate than themselves. As we have mentioned; this is a country which gives the highest percentage of its income to charity. The charity being the thousands of monks (and to a lesser extent, nuns) in the country.