Our first destination was a Golden Deer sanctuary, which turned out to be pretty disappointing. When we got to the headquarters it was vacant, and so our driver rousted the director, who looked like he had just gotten out of bed and was having his first cigarette of the day. He didn't speak English, but San Win informed us that we could only see deer at the Shwe Set Taw pagoda festival (our second destination). That was a bit weird, but we went with the flow.
Turned out that they had set up a little corral near the pagoda, as sort of an advertisement for the sanctuary.
Dana gamely (accidental pun) fed one of the deer.
The festival was a major happening.
It goes for three weeks, and likely attracts thousands, although more so on the weekends (we were there on Friday).
The monks were doing their thing with the vendors...
We accompanied the pilgrims across the river...
and in a climb up several flights of stairs...
with stops at veneration sites along the way...
that had stands to purchase your offerings....not sure where the dirty plates came from, didn't see any offerings being eaten.
There was an unusual number of palm readers...
including this guy - had to admire his reclining Buddha approach.
When we reached the top, the most interesting thing for a non-Buddhist was the panorama of the festival.
After we returned from the trip, our friend Thander came by with a car and driver (and her cousin) to take us to a very interesting site we had not heard about - a bubbling mud pot that has become a veneration site. Thandar's giving Dana prayer instructions, which she follows (again covering bases?)
The belief is that the pot is inhabited by a dragon, and folks toss milk and flowers into it to appease the dragon. The dragon has a couple of human siblings who are nats and whose images are present on the premises to receive more negotiable gifts.
An oddity - the mud is cold.
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