A Myanmar girl enjoying waters and fun !
Shwegonedine Road is congested with vehicles. Loud music and live performance attract hard-core ravelers, causing massive jams in the city.
Truck-load being showered at a pandal. Normally a family went around the town together in a roofless truck to enjoy water.
One of the big pandal sponsored by a big company along Kabaye Pagoda Road.
A pandal under construction.
Water festival in Myanmar is known as Thingyan. It marks the end of the current Burmese year and the beginning of another new year. Burmese year is based on lunar system and this year they celebrate Year 1371. Thingyan usually falls on April 13th and lasts for three or four days. During this period, waters are thrown to passers-by to “cleanse their sins”. That’s what devoted Buddhists believe but what started as a religious ritual now has become a country’s most celebrated holiday, participated by everybody. Thingyan is no doubt the most celebrated holidays in the country. Government offices and schools were closed. Followed immediately with the New Year holidays, the total holiday was ten days, which was quite long. However some private companies and schools did not observe full ten days. This year, Thingyan alone fell on 14th through 16th of April, 2009.
Waters were thrown from simply a bucket put by the parents for their children to throw to passers-by using a plastic bowl or nowadays from ‘Pandals’. What is Pandal? I could not find this word in most English dictionaries, so I presume it must be a Burmese word. The Pandal is normally a wooden stage constructed by the roadside and near water source. In Yangon there are many natural lakes, so the likely place you can find a Pandal is along those lakes. Pandal comes in many shapes. Their size varies. Most of them are just a simple stage just for people to walk up and spray waters. Some have bigger space which serve as dance floor for revelers and also provide the space for live band to perform.
To construct a Pandal, you must apply for a permit from Yangon City Development Counsel (YCDC). Pandals dot up the busy roads in the City of Yangon, among them are Inya Road, Kabaye Aye Pagoda Road and also along Kandawgyi Lake. Loud music is a must on a Pandal. In fact the louder the better as it attract more people to your Pandal. People walk or drive through right in front of the Pandal, to be showered by people on the Pandal. They come in throng on open-roof pickup trucks or jeeps or modified vans. They come here willingly, so they will absorb whatever thrown at them, and say thank you to you by waving their hands when they leave.
Water is the main component of the pandal. The big pandals normally suck waters from a nearby lake using powerful water pumps. From the top of the pandal, simple water hose was used to spray to passers-by. Some pandals also provided high pressure fire water hose to their guests to spray to the revelers. The pandal I visited pumped water from Kandawgyi Lake, a natural lake in the middle of the city. The water was so green that I took it as okay because even the algae could survive there. But it is strong advisable to rinse yourself with pipe water once you are back in hotel room or apartment, since you don’t know much the quality of the water.
Since the situation was quite charged-up, largely due to the rock music playing through speakers sometimes occupying the quarter of the space on the Pandal, you should expect some electrifying moments. Yes, this is a fiesta. Revelers were dancing to the tune of the music, on the road, on the Pandal or even on the moving vehicles. Local bands were performing live music on some big Pandal sponsored by big companies in airline or construction business.
What made it more exciting was the rowdy and raunchy behaviors of the ravelers. Most drank and got drunk, dangerously. Few fell off the pickup truck on the wet road and had to be dragged to the curb by peers. They danced and screamed wildly on the street.
This is a country where imported goods are rare, so they consume local beers or home-made ones.
With alcohol in their blood veins, some went out of control. They danced berserk on the street with green bottle of Myanmar Lager Beer in their hands. Some danced on the roof of the moving vehicle to the tune of western rock songs but with Burmese lyrics. Songs in the like of Boney M’s Rasputin and Macarena and other famous hip hop songs could not be difficult to differentiate with local traditional songs.
Wilder teenager went further by taking off their shirts. Female revelers wore skimpy dress and when in contact with water revealed body curve to the delight of their boyfriends. The moments were so electrifying that for a moment you never thought it would happen in this religious and polite society, where half of the population are Buddhist monks.
Driving along streets with Pandal was an uphill task. These roads were clogged with vehicles queueing to drive through the Pandals to be showered. Extra measures should be taken to avoid hittting the drunkard, men and women alike.
With water, wine and music coming together, Burmese Water Festival or known as Thingyan is not really for everybody. If it is meant for an avenue to celebrate and enjoy, yes the mission is accomplished. The local would forget the misery of their life for a while. They lived in their utopian world for a good three or so days, breaking traffic rules, getting drunk, dancing recklessly on the streets and nobody including authority bothered.
If getting sprayed at the pandal proves too much for you, you may have a traditional way of enjoying water festival. If you want only small water, try walking around the neighborhood in between apartment blocks during Thingyan. Innocent children would appear behind the parked cars with a bowl of water and threw it onto you. Be prepared to get wet and take no offend. The right response was simply a smile or waving hand to signal a thank you.
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