Joyride: Intha ethnic people watching from their boats during the pagoda festival at Inlay Lake in southern Shan State. — AP
Thousands of Buddhists took to boats on Myanmar’s famed Inle Lake to celebrate the return of one of the nation’s biggest festivals, but the devotees’ joy was laced with the sorrow of war.
The seventeen-day Phaung Daw Oo pagoda festival sees four sacred Buddha images placed on a golden barge and rowed through villages that dot the shores of the tourist hotspot in eastern Shan state.
