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Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival in Inle Lake
The Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival is the largest Buddhist celebration on Inle Lake, held over 18 days during the Thadingyut lunar month, September to October. Four of the pagoda's five gilded Buddha images, believed to date to the 12th-century Pagan Kingdom, travel by royal barge across the lake, welcomed by villages with ceremonies, offerings and the lake's distinctive one-legged rowing boat races.
Once a year, the stillness of Inle Lake gives way to one of Myanmar's most elaborate religious processions, as four gilded Buddha images leave their home at Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda and travel by ornate royal barge across the water.