Mount Popa

Mt. Popa.  Taung Kalat is the volcanic plug left-center and about a third of the way in.

                                                                                                                                                           Waguang

Mt. Popa, showing the caldera, debris breach, and volcanic plug Taung Kalat

The caldera is about 1.6 km wide and 850 m deep.

 Taungkalat Monastery  

 

Nats were human beings who met violent deaths and returned as forest and mountatin guardian spirits.  The Burmese worship of nats predates Buddhism.  Today some urban Burmese dismiss them as superstition.  More generally there is a syncretism between  nat and Buddhist beliefs, actual practice combining the two.  Properly propitiated nats can make life easier.  If one gets on their wrong side, they can make life a living hell.  However viewed, they are a  real part of people's lives.

Mount Popa is considered the abode of Burma's most powerful Nats and as such is the most important nat worship center.  There is a small shrine in the village at the base of Taung Kalat.

The Nat shrine in Taung Kalat  was 50 km or so from our lodgings.  On the way we stopped at a toddy palm plantation to see how the candy treat jaggery was made.The shrine village had macaque monkeys hopping about, on house ledges, in the street, and hillsides. 

Following our visit to the Nat shrine we had a nice lunch at the Popa Mountain Resort Hotel atop a hillside on the slopes overlooking the Bagan plains, after which we drove to the Bagan airport for our hour-and-a-half flight back to Yangon.

Tomorrow I will catch a flight through Bangkok to Siem Riep, Cambodia to see Angkor Wat..

END of  the blog Myanmar, Land of Blue Mists.

Acknowledgments:  

     This trip would not have been possible without the meticulous planning of Betchart Expeditions.

     I thank them for making my time in Myanmar educational, fun, and adventurous.

     Chris Carpenter, our expedition leader lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  He is one of a kind.

     Sanda, our local guide while in Myanmar, ferreted out the nooks, crannies, and good food that     

     made Burma special, not just a "sight-see".

Copyright Notice

     All photographs in this blog, except those explicitly attributed to others,
     are  © 2013 Walter Richard Holmquist.  All rights reserved.