Day 55: Yangon Again, the Shwedagon Paya Festival

I felt a little better in the am, and so I showered and had some breakfast, before returning to the blog, interrupted only by a procession outside of our hotel, this one appearing to be Hindu.



Pretty much a recuperative day, resting, getting caught up with the blog (with a break for lunch), and then taxiing down to the Shwedagon Paya for its full moon festival.

Thousands of people were streaming in, filling the courtyards.



My fellow Friday-born folks were at our station.



As the sun set and the moon rose, the crowd swelled...







The wondrous thing was how personal the experience seemed to be for each person (there were no preachers), even as it was abundantly clear that having the experience in the company of others was the whole point of the festival.



As we left, people were still streaming in by the thousands.

On a slightly negative note, Caucasians looked terribly out of place in the setting, even the ones in longyis - no, especially the ones in longyis.

On a more positive note, I was able to capture three different colors the jewels at the top of the pagoda display from three slightly different positions:

Blue (sort of)





Red





and green.





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