#mt popa

[tomkuffner]

Popa Taung Kalat Temple atop Mount Popa, outside of Bagan.

[jmudditt-blog]

Taking a peep at Mt Popa

Taking a peep at Mt Popa

Published in Mizzima Weekly on 27 August 2015

Nats in temple complex at the summit of Mt Popa

For those intrigued by the practice of nat worship in Myanmar, a trip to Mt Popa is a must as it’s the most revered place in the country for this fascinating, millennium-old form of spirit worship.

Mt Popa’s name is derived from the Sanskrit word for flower and this rocky crag contains a complex of…

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[allabroadau]

Fighting the monkeys at Mt Popa

We said goodbye to Mandalay and our driver as our new driver picked us up to take us to Mt Popa. It’s a four-hour drive from Mandalay to Mt Popa and our only stops were for a drink at a roadside stall in one of the local villages and a stop for lunch at the…

Fighting the monkeys at Mt Popa was originally published on All Abroad

[issyandkatiesbigadventure]

Bloomin Brilliant Bagan

We arrived into Bagan at 7 in the evening to a crazy amount of bats swirling about and a buzzing jetty (more of a dust slope) - another agility test - and we were officially into Bagan!!! Our first day in Bagan consisted of organising ourselves - FINALLY finding a laundry service, as well as our first e-bikes, which we used to take us to the incredible Aureum Palace, a hotel with an infinity pool that overlooked the setting sun, and a field of Padgoda's. Our home in Bagan was the beautifully thought out Ostello Bello, a European style hostel that had a bar (including a happy hour), awesome dorms with actually comfy beds and many other backpackers. It was through a couple we met while having a few mojitos (Issy is clearly missing Turtle Bay and all of its cocktails) that we met Freddie and Sophie, two girls from Durham that we organised to go to Mount Popa with. So one day we rose early, so we could climb the 777 steps to the top of the volcanic plug that is Mt Popa! We then took advantage of our hired taxi, as we visited yet another infinity pool overlooking the beautiful landscape, including the volcanic plug we had climbed earlier! At lunch the next day, we truly proved that the world is indeed tiny - Issy had met Freddie's mother at a TEDx conference in Bath two years earlier after her presentation about her documentary work, then Issy had had a thorough talk with her -- which she remembered! We then spent the rest of our time in Bagan biking around, bartering for a few pairs of trousers (we really are looking like proper travellers now), and finding a quiet temples to view the sunsets and rises from. A huge highlight was definitely finding a tiny, crumbling Padgoda for sunset, which we viewed with a few other tourists, who were all silent - as the sun was setting a flock of birds flew in front of us, shadowed by the incredible colours and clouds from the (very orange) sun. Once we find a reliable cafe Katie will uploads her photos, which are firmly better than our phone snaps - although she still struggled to capture the immense beauty and size of Bagan - a camera just cannot do it justice. Heartbreakingly, our time to leave Bagan had come - we boarded our night bus to Thazi, where we were to get the slow train to Shwenyaung, aka Lake Inle.

[maddoverseas]

Bagan, 4 September

Looking for a change of pace from temple hopping, on my third morning on the Bagan plain, I opted to do the Mt Popa hike. Situated an hour and a half from Nuaung U, the landscape transforms from dry low lying shrubs lush rainforest. Mt Popa is an extinct volcano that last exploded about 250000 years ago. The top of the volcanic plug is now home to a Buddhist temple reached via 777 steps, walking the gauntlet of a large resident colony of energetic macaques. It is the spiritual home of nat worship in Burma. A nat is a spirit being that predates the introduction of Buddhism to the country. Nats are thought to rule over certain places, people or fields (e.g. learning, drunkenness). Their worship became integrated into Buddhism in Burma, there are 37 recognised nats and Mt Popa is the place to go to pay homage, particularly during nat festivals.

The monkeys jump all around you as you make the climb though the technique for not being attacked is the same as in Nepal: don’t make eye contact and don’t carry around attractive or tasty things in your hands. Due to heavy rain the previous night, the monkeys had their own impromptu swimming pool in a landing on the way up.

While there was a lot of cloud, the top provided great views across the forested plains and rolling hills.

In the afternoon, I went for one last viewing of the temples on bicycle. And then it was farewell magical Bagan, and back to Yangon.

[icouldseethat-com]

Mt Popa, Myanmar - April, 2013

If you didn’t know, monkeys are scary. Real scary. And mean.

We were the first people of the day to climb the thousands of steps up Mt Popa to catch sunrise from Burma’s most famous viewpoint. We must have been early and caught the monkeys sleeping because at first there were none, and our first glimpse of one brought the standard oohs and aws that normally come with monkey sightings. The stairs to the top of the mountain are covered in thin tin roofs and before long the pitter of monkey footsteps turned into a thunderous cascade. Monkeys literally started falling out the sky, hustling to get the best begging and hissing vantage points for the droves of Burmese tourists that would inevitably be making the pilgrimage to the temple at the top throughout the day. As the first ones up (and the only non-Burmese, lacking standard monkey defense skills) I think we got the worst of it.

By the time we made it to the top we had had our fill and I had taken 10,000 monkey close-ups. Here are my favorites with some landscapes mixed so you can see just how epic this place is, Monkey’s aside.

[matadornetwork]

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