Bagan, the ancient cultural zone, hosted hundreds of thousands of travellers on the full moon day of Thadingyut on 9 October, and the number of visitors was higher than last year.
Before the full moon day, the trucks full of pilgrims from the upper and lower parts of Myanmar entered Bagan and it was crowded with visitors one day ahead of full moon day, full moon day and after the full moon day. The hotel bookings were full and the visitors had to stay in their vehicles, at the monasteries and pavilions.
During the outbreak of the pandemic, the Bagan tour was temporarily suspended and it resumed little by little in Thingyan 2021. The unexpected high arrivals of travellers during October’s Thadingyut festival make good transactions at the shops, and during this Thadingyut festival, the people had to rely on the food stalls. Bagan also hosted foreign tourists and the hotels and restaurants between Bagan and NyaungU including souvenir shops, local handmade shops and lacquerware shops were crowded with pilgrimage trucks.
“Before the full moon day of Thadingyut, a famous pagoda hosted nearly 6,000 visitors and about 120,000 visitors on the full moon day. Today, after the full moon day, there are about 8,000 pilgrims. The stalls and roads are crowded with visitors. The garment shops can sell over a K1 million worth of clothing on a full moon day. The pony cart, electric bikes and motorcycles, puppets and hand painting are running properly. The visitors visited Bagan unexpectedly last year due to COVID-19, and there are hundreds of thousands of visitors to this Thadingyut festival. The locals are satisfied as they can run their businesses properly. If it keeps going like that, the locals expect higher numbers of visitors than the previous year,” said U Tin Hla Oo, secretary of the Htilominlo pagoda board of trustees.
The government also makes efforts in promoting the tourism industry by cooperating with Thai TV Channel to strengthen bilateral tourism and creating the atmosphere for businesses of residents. Therefore, it is expected that there would be high local/foreign visitors in winter, and the language training courses including Russian, Chinese and Thai languages are being conducted in Bagan.
On the full moon day of Thadingyut, 2021, there were about 3,000 visitors to the pagodas in Bagan. In 2022, there were between 6,000 and 120,000 visitors to Shwezigon, Htilominlo, Alodawpyae, Ananda, Cunamani, Dhammayangyi, Shwesandaw, Thabbyinnyu, Kataw Palin, Buu, Manuha, Mya Zedi, Lawka Nanda, Dhamma Razika, Hngetpyit Hill, Tuyin Hill and Tantkyi Hill. — Nyein Thu (MNA)/GNLM
