PRE-THINGYAN 2009

TRADITION

It is believed that water festival (known as THINGYAN) washes away sins and welcomes the New Year. The water festival represents the most popular, raucous and colorful celebration of the year for more than 120 million people who will abandon any thoughts of work and bring their nations to a standstill. People around the country gather together again and visits pagodas, offers and pay homage to the monks, play traditional games and celebrate with their joyous spirit.

On those days people especially young and adult people are throwing water to each other to get relief from the intense heat of the season and to wash away the sins from the past year and celebrate water festival. However, throwing water at elderly people, pregnant women and Sabbath keepers is taboo, especially in rural areas. Many elderly people spend the duration of the Festival observing Sabbath, meditate and donate to charities. In addition, Special interests at Thingyan are the beautifully decorated floats with people singing and dancing on them that go around the city.

SHOOTING

I am now in Bangkok. Yes, I flied here today. I won’t be in Yangon during Thingyan. My apology to my fans who have been looking forward to see the photos of THINGYAN (Water Festival / Myanmar New Year Festival). I truthfully felt so sorry for that and I had been wrestling with my mind at least to have a post with THINGYAN spirit. I indeed wanted to compensate my absentee of fetching the biggest celebration in Myanmar (Burma).

I woke up so early today. In fact, I could not sleep well due to frequent electricity black outs. Weather is burning and there is no electricity for almost all day long. Imagine!! So, I called up my best friend, WYNN THEIN, early in the morning to come and pick me up. 9:00 AM, here he came!! I paid homage to my Dad and left home. Had my breakfast at LUCKY SEVEN local teashop. Then to my Mom’s office just to give a sweet kiss. My departure time is 14:20. I got some three hours. Cool. I asked WYNN THEIN to give me a drive around INYA ROAD, the ever hottest place of YANGON’S THINGYAN. I had some photos of pandals rising along the INYA road. So, I am here sharing with you at least to bring your soul to INYA road and of course YANGON THINGYAN.

1_resize1

This is NGU, a kind of flower which symbolizes the spirit of THINGYAN…

2_resize1

This NGU tree stands right in front of UFL (University of Foreign Languages) on University Avenue Road…

3_resize1

It’s in front of Kokine Chinese Temple. Possibly the biggest pandal in Yangon sponsored by TMW ENTERPRISE (SONY, T-HOME, INAX and LG). The Trees music band will be here on the stage with Phyo Gyi, Tin Zar Maw, Sone Thin Par, Pho Kar and many other renown singers).

4_resize1

This year, YANGON CITY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (YCDC) granted 40 pandals permitted along INYA ROAD…

5_resize1

Blizzard by Myanmar DJs association… Look at the speakers on the stage… It rocks!!!

6_resize1

The organizers of this pandal has 6 years of experiences on INYA road…

7_resize1

The entrance of YANGON SAILING CLUB (YANGON BOATS CLUB) is taken by ZERO YGN pavilion… The fees of this pandal is 45,000 KYATS (US$ 45) for 3 days…

http://www.myohanhtun.com MYO HAN HTUN

Nice Shot! Your post made me missing Thingyan.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ MYO HAN HTUN >> Yes, bro. Not only you, me either. Lolz…
Su Hnin

woww very beautiful flowers….
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Su Hnin >> I was seriously LONGING for PADAUK (Pterocarpus macrocarpus) but did not happen to shoot…
http://melodymaung.com MelodyMaung

Although your nice shooting upon Ngu, I cannot substitute it with Padauk. I love only padauk. Whatever, your pics of pandals as pre thingyan shot, thanks a lot. :)
Wish happy myanmar new year to you, my dear.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ MelodyMaung >> Thanks a lot for your comment and visit, my sis. Well, of course I also longed for PADAUK but there still no bloom there. So I am sharing what I have. HAPPY NEW YEAR to you too…
Violet

Too bad that u cant find padauk there. its blooming here,probably near ABAC as well. but its sad that its no meaning to them.I am not a fan of padauk actually and yet, longing to see every April at least.
Hope u will be able to share more pics after thingyan. Happy new year anyway. :)
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Violet >> Yes, everything has it’s PLACE and TIME. It’s sad that PADAUK blooms at the place where people do not value it. I wish we have some in Yangon so that I have some shots here. HAPPY NEW YEAR, my friend…
htike

Thanks so mush for sharing…Though we couldn’t participate, Thingyan will be in our heart forever…Wish you for another prosperous year ahead..!
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Htike >> Thanks for your visit and comment, my sis. I wish you have a bountiful year ahead too…
http://www.myokyawhtun.com Myo Kyaw Htun

Missing Mandalay Thingyan.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Myo Kyaw Htun >> I miss Thingyan but not modern one. I wish we can go back to those old classic days…
William Chit-Maung

Hey Bro, the one that caught my eye is the 3rd one. It’s perfectly cropped and has very good lighting. What I really like is the sky behind the tree. It gives the glowing effect and promotes a dreamy feeling.
After all, Thingyan is just a dream for those who are away from our home land….
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ William Chit-Mg >> I have spent an hour on shot #3, bro. Sky color is the result of harmonious tuning in Adobe Lightroom. And thanks a lot for your visit and comment. May you have a prosperous year ahead…
EiYupar

Friend, your pictures are so nice. I’m wondering if you can let me use the first picture for my new year greeting card. It is so lively.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Ei Yupar >> Hey friend. Thanks indeed for your comment and visit. Sure, you can see any of these photos for good purposes. May you have a very beautiful year ahead…
http://khinoomay77.blogspot.com/ kom

ပံုကေလးေတြ ခံစားသြားပါတယ္။ ရန္ကုန္မွာမရွိတဲ႔ အတြက္စိတ္မေကာင္းပါ။ အားလံုးက သတိရေနၾကပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာနဲ႕သႀကၤန္က ခဲြမရပဲကုိး။
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ KOM >> Thanks for your comment, sis… I believe you have some THINGYAN mood seeing my photos…
Ye Myat Aung

Hey bro, thanks for your photos. They are nice. Thingyan, Paduak, Inya …all those away from home will miss them. Missing those from somewhere in the world.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Ye Myat Aung >> Thanks for your visit, my friend… I can imagine how much you would miss this festive season back in our home land…
pon_gyi

I HATE YOU!!!!! i’ve been trying my best to forget about thingyan & all those nostalgic feelings… but now ur pics make me miss thingyan & my life in ygn awfually… garrr… i can’t b in ygn for thingyan & also can’t join my family on their trip to bkk during thingyan… life’s not fair!!! :((… btw, luv those pics of NGU blooming… it would b much more adorable if those were glittering golden PADAUK…
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Pon Gyi >> I am sorry to hear about your DRAMA, my sis… You should at least be glad that you have chances to see these pictures. Yes, I have one more photo left for next post. It’s gonna be on 13 APR. Wait and see, my sis… Padauk? I couldn’t find at all, sigh…
Chit Su Wai

Hey bro,
I miss Innyar road so much when I see your photos. You make me cry !_!
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Chit Su Wei >> Hey sis… I am sorry to hear that. I know how much you would miss Yangon Thingyan…
http://BurmeseMTV.com/ Linn

geez.. I wanna go back
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Linn >> Call up your ticketing agent and book for a ticket, bro… Lolz…
wutyee

akhu lo send pay tar thanks par
http://moelwinstuff.blogspot.com/ Moe Lwin

Ko Ye Lwin Oo,
Its almost cruel to post pics for guys away to look at. (but tons of thanks for putting them on)
They remind us all that we are gonna miss.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Thingyan.
And looking forward to the Bangkok Posts that are surely to come soon
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ WutYee >> Thanks a lot for your visit, my friend…

@ Moe Lwin >> Thanks for your visit and comment, bro… I will definitely have Bangkok posts soon…
http://cmsmdy.blogspot.com CMS

ႏွိပ္စက္တယ္ ႏွိပ္စက္တယ္
ဘုိင္ဒေ၀း … ထုိင္းမွာ ဘယ္ႏွရက္ၾကာမွာလဲ … ထုိင္းကေတာ့ ဓာတ္ပံု တယ္ၿပီး ရိုက္လို႔ေကာင္းတဲ့ေနရာပဲ … လႊတ္သာရိုက္ခဲ့ ;)
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ CMS >> 9 days here, bro. Haven’t bought my SLR yet. Left my old one in YGN and about to go and buy a new one tomorrow…
AKKN

Thanks a lot for ur photos.
But it make me miss Myanmar Thingyan.
But i dont want modern one which is very rude and out of Myanmar tradition.
I want Myanmar people to celebrate Thingyan that show how lovely our tradition.
I dont want to turn water festival to alcohol and fighting festival.
Anyway i appreciate your action for Myanmar who r away from mother land.
Treasure

a ma lay… YLO yal

d photo tway nat nga ko hnate sat tal… ta kal pal… Thingyan ko lwan tal :’(
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ AKKN >> I do feel the same with you, bro. I do love the traditional THINGYAN. I am glad that you appreciate the photos… HAPPY NEW YEAR, my friend…

@ Treausre >> A Lwan Pyay Lay Par…
http://alainsojourner.typepad.com/ Alain

Are there festivals around end of May?
Thanks.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Alain >> Thanks for your visit, my bro. May there are some small festivals but I would rather recommend you to come in OCTOBER. There is a lighting festival called THADINGYUT in Oct.
You can see my THADINGYUT here.
http://khinoomay77.blogspot.com/ KOM

you are correct. I have full of thingyan mood.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ KOM >> Thanks for your comment and visit, my friend…
ma hnin

Mg Lay ,
Very nice naw . Ohhhh wanna go home .Thank you for your photos. ;)
Ryan

May I know when is the exact date of Thingyan Festival?
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Ma Hnin >> Thanks for your visit and comment, my sis…

@ Ryan >> It’s from 13th Apr to 16th Apr, my friend…
http://www.co2zenith.co.cc/ Co2zenith

လန္းလဲလန္းတယ္ လြမ္းလဲလြမ္းတရ္ဗ်ာ၊၊
ပံုေလးေတြ ၾကၫ္႔ၿပီးပို ထိတရ္ဗ်ာ၊၊
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Co2zenith >> Thanks a lot for your comment, my friend…
htut min han

very good shot; wish u b a Zaw Min Yu!
SuWei

lots ngu wah flower this year in sg..but not many pa-dauk flower wor..!
anyway, it sure is a beautiful sight to see these yellow new year flower :D
http://moelwinstuff.blogspot.com/ Moe Lwin

Are you still in Thailand, with all the commotion going on?
If so, be careful, they are asians like us!
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Htut Min Han >> Zaw Min Yu??? Far out, my friend. He is way too PRO…

@ Suwei >> These yellow flowers (both NGU and PADAUK) are the greatest symbols of THINGYAN…

@ Moe Lwin >> Still in Thailand, bro… Sigh… I am staying home all day long. :(
http://- MeMe

I miss Yangon Thingyan.
Thanks friend
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ MeMe >> Thanks a lot for your kind visit and comment…
KhaingThant

shall i go back today? i hope i still can make it.. lol
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ KhaingThant >> Why not? Call up your ticketing agent then…
yuki

Wowwwwww… i miss my old days…! :(
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Yuki >> Thanks a lot for your visit, my friend… We all miss our tradition…
Samuel

Thanks for ur photos n i feel it is updated. And i hope u will also upload Thingyan Image during Thingyan so that i will feel better for missing Thingyan.
Wai Lin Tun

Hey friend, I’m also graduated from Dagon-1 in 2000. I’ve been known you very well. I’m also a friend of Wai Yan Chit Maung, Aung Tay Za Aye, Win Min Aung, Lin Ye Thu. I don’t know you’ve known me or not. I appreciate #3 of your talents. I guaranteed you’ll be excellent one in one day. Cheers up ! Friend. Take care everything !
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Samual >> Thanks for your visit. I am right now in Bangkok. Sorry that I would not be able to post any Thingyan shot this year…

@ Wai Lin Tun >> I am always happy to see my old friends by some ways. I get keep in touch with oldies @ friendster, facebook and yes here on my site. Your name sounds very familiar to me. But I cannot recall your face. Sorry for my bad. My shot #3 is a wide angel shot further retouched by Adobe Lightroom 2.1. It is my favorite of this set too. If you have suggestion for me, feel free to leave comments here.
http://notyet.com tharchaw

i’m really really…… really and really … miss my country …
:( wana cry …
misss misss misss
misss and miss … misss … misss ..
thuyein

hi…
happy new year !!
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Tharchae >> Thanks for your visit, my friend. Appreciated!!

@ Thuyein >> Same to you, bro…
http://awoolham.xangan.com A.

wish I could see more Thigyan’s photos..too bad you weren’t there, but did enjoy the pre-festival activities though. thanks for the pics.
http://BurmeseMTV.com/ Linn

YLO, I wish I could, life has changed nowadays, can’t do what I want heheeh

:)
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ A. >> Thanks for your visit and comment…

@ Linn >> There will be one day, bro…
snow

i like NGU. very beautiful. thanks for ur flower.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Snow >> Thanks for your visit and comment. Some prefer NGU and some picks PADAUK… For me, I love both…
Su

i really really miss ygn, i want to go back ygn,,, My mother land miss!!!
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Su >> That’s the typical feeling of people away from homeland…
http://yelwinoo.com/festivals-events/merry-kason.html MERRY KASON

[...] Myanmar New Year begins with sprays of cool water showering on friends with goodwill and loving kindness. Come Kason, the second month of Myanmar lunar calendar, and once again water is poured. This time on the sacred tree, the Bodhi tree, the tree of enlightenment. The Full moon Day of Kason is a day of three – fold significance the Day the Buddha was born, the day He attained Enlightenment and the Day of His Demise. All over the Myanmar, men and women of all ages go to pagodas in procession to pour water at the root of sacred ‘Bo-Tree’ or ‘Bodhi’ tree under which the Buddha attained Enlightenment. [...]
Sandy Kuo

I always go back Myanmar annually but not at NGUs @ Padauks blooming season. Tks for posting these pics especially NGU (Cassia Fistula) which is my favourite flower. Permit me to place it on my desk-top?
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Sandy Kuo >> I am glad that you like the shots. Feel free to use it for all sorts of non-commercial purposes…
မလတ္

သႀကၤန္ လည္ဖူးပါတယ္ ၊ ေနာက္ေတာ႔ လည္ခ်င္စိတ္ ကုန္သြားတယ္။ အားလံုးက ျမန္မာ့ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ ကို မသိေတာ႔ပဲ တရား၀င္ ေသာက္ပြဲႀကီးလို ျဖစ္ေနေတာ႔ စိတ္ကုန္သြားတယ္။ ပန္းေတြနဲ႔ ရာသီကေတာ့ အျပစ္မဲ႔စြာအခ်ိန္တိုင္း ပံုမွန္လည္ပတ္ေနေပမယ္႔ လူေတြက သႀကၤန္ကို အရုပ္ဆိုးေအာင္ လုပ္ေနၾကတယ္ေနာ္။ ငု၀ါပန္းပံုကို ႀကိဳက္လို႔ ယူသြားပါတယ္ ေက်းဇူးတင္ပါတယ္ ရွင္၊၊
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ မလတ္ >> ေလာကႀကီးမွာ ဘယ္ေနရာ ၊ ဘယ္အေျခအေနမွာ မဆို အေကာင္း ၊ အဆိုး ဒြန္တြဲ ေနတတ္စၿမဲပါ။ ေသာက္တာက အျပစ္တစ္ခု မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ေပ်ာ္ရင္ ေသာက္တတ္တဲ႔ သူေတြ အမ်ားႀကီး ရယ္ပါ။ ေသာက္ၿပီး ျပသနာ ႐ွာတတ္တဲ႔ လူတစ္စု ေၾကာင္႔ ျမန္မာ႔ ႏွစ္သစ္ အတာ ဆိုတာ စိတ္ပ်က္ဖြယ္ တစ္ခု ျဖစ္သြားခဲ႔တယ္ ထင္ပါတယ္။ ငု၀ါ ပန္းပံုေလး က အင္းယားလမ္း ေလွေလွာ္အသင္း နားေလးမွာ ႐ိုက္ထားတာပါ။
PuSu

di year tot twar par p kwal… yay choe khan htae mar pae pa lin htaung ya tot mal…
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ PuSu >> ဘာလို႔ ေရခ်ိဳးခန္းကို္မွ ေ႐ြးခ်ယ္ တာလဲ ဟင္…။
Thin Sandar Khine

Hey… u mind if i use ur ngu picture for my lecture? I tried to find out this kinda picture in google but urs is the best… Can I use it?? :))
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Thin Sandar Khine >> Feel free to use for any non-commercial purpose sis…
Thin Sandar Khine

Thank you dude… I m gonna use it now, but I promise it’s not for commercial… It’s for my lecture… :))
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

Thin Sandar Khine >> You’re welcome, my friend…