Buddhist Nat festival at Mount Popa

Travel Day 1145 – Bagan and Mount Popa, MYANMAR

After not being too concerned about the nat before, today we decided to visit the pilgrimage site of Mount Popa on a day trip…

Mount Popa rising above the Plateau

Mount Popa was really only about 50 km away from Bagan and it was famous for its Buddhist temples and nat shrines. Everything was set atop a sheer cliff, rising 737 meters above the surrounding plateau and being accessed only by a single stairway with 777 steps. Geologically the cliff used to be a volcanic plug and it reminded visually of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka which too was rising for no apparent reason out of the jungle…

Our initial idea had been to catch the morning bus that was shuttling people every day between Bagan and Mount Popa, but because of the ongoing festivities the bus was unfortunately fully booked. The festival was happening during the full moon time and we had already visited the main stage in Bagan one evening. But apparently the festivities were also happening during the day and especially at the sacred site of Mount Popa…

Golden Buddhist Stupa atop Mount Popa

For us it meant that we had to throw our money together with some people from the hostel and hire a driver with an open jeep. This actually turned out to be about the same price as the bus would have been and it gave us more flexibility to enjoy the action at Mount Popa itself. How much action there was we came to realize already during the almost 90 minute drive. For some reason the entire road through the countryside seemed to be lined with people waving at us…

At first we thought they were all just recognizing that we were tourists and we started waving back, but after a while our driver pointed out that they were actually collecting money. It seemed very strange because there were so many people and it was absolutely impossible to give money to all of them, but we saw in fact other cars throwing small bills into the air or onto the pavement while driving by. The people were then running to catch the money and immediately returned to keep waving at other cars. It was all a bit strange…

Collecting Money before Mount Popa

But things got even stranger when we arrived. Everything was packed with people and we had to fight our way along all the little vendors to even reach the bottom of Mount Popa. Climbing the 777 steps in the slow-moving stream of people was then a great way to practice patience. Everybody was pushing and trying to reach the golden Buddhist stupa on the top or one of the many shrines along the way to do some worshipping. We saw a lot of bananas or coconuts being offered and money tossed into the air with the result that people went plain crazy. For us it was all a bit of a mystery…

Actually when we consulted the guide-book it stated that a visit at Mount Popa without a physical guide was like watching a foreign-language film without subtitles. While this was probably true, the statement certainly did nothing to the effect of helping us to understand things. So what was left for us was a much too crowded, but culturally quite interesting day in which we could observe a lot of Buddha and nat worshipping. This surely was a great contrast to the peacefully abandoned temples of Bagan but it was a welcomed change in scenery with great views from the top of Mount Popa…

Find all Mount Popa Photos here.