Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda in Mon State is a popular destination for pilgrimage tours.

WITH monsoon fading into memory and the pagoda festival season approaching, local travel agencies are gearing up to offer specialised tours for Buddhist pilgrims.

The Thadingyut festival of lights, which this year occurs from October 25 to 27, marks the end of the Buddhist Lent period and the start of the pagoda festival season.

During this season Buddhists in Myanmar often plan their travel around religious festivals, journeying to distant pagodas to pay homage to the Buddha and to gain merit to help wash away the misdeeds of the past. Many local tour operators are happy to help people plan such trips by specialising in arranging pilgrimage tours to festivals throughout the country.

“We will start the season with a tour to Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda (in Mon State) on October 19 and another to Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival at Inle Lake (in Shan State) on October 25,” said U Kyi Win, the manager of Sein Win and Associates Travel and Tours.

Several other tour companies are also planning to kick off the season by offering trips to the popular 20-day Phaung Daw Oo festival.

“We are planning a five-day, four-night trip to the festival, starting on October 25 to correspond to school holidays so families can travel with children,” said U Aung Myint, the owner of Thandithukha Travel and Tours.

The trip will include stops at Taunggyi, Inle, Pindaya, Konelon and Kalaw, he said.

“We are also offering another tour on the same dates to Bagan, Nyaung Oo and Mt Popa, and tours to the Hot-air Balloon Festival and Sulamani Pagoda Festival in Taunggyi (in Shan State) in November,” U Aung Myint said.

While most pilgrimage tours occur during the festival season from October to May, some people also rely on tour companies to arrange travel to pagodas during monsoon to pay homage. But heavy rains combined with uncertainty stemming from protests last month have made this year’s off-season even slower than usual.

“Our pilgrimage tour business was slightly slower than usual during the wet season because of heavy rain and few people have shown interest in travelling since then,” said U Aye Thein, the owner of Oriental Dragon Tours.

“The number of pilgrims was down during the rainy season so we couldn’t even run our regular tours at that time,” he said.