Temporary bamboo huts line Mann Creek during Shwesettaw Pagoda Festival in Magwe Division. Pic: Myanmar Times

THE opening ceremony of the Shwesettaw Pagoda Festival was held in Magwe Division last month, attracting more than 7000 pilgrims from throughout Myanmar.

U Myint Thura, the chairman of the pagoda’s board of trustees, told The Myanmar Times that this year’s festival will last for 81 days, from January 30 to April 20.

“Shwesettaw Pagoda Festival is one of the most significant pagoda festivals in the country, and it gives the Buddhist people of Myanmar the chance to visit this sacred site in the forest – a place where Lord Buddha put his left-side footprints,” he said.

“Since the opening day of the festival, about 600 locals and tourists have been visiting each day,” he said last week.

The pagoda festival is held in the Settawya forest, 58 kilometres (36 miles) from the town of Magwe, which about 532km (330 miles) from Yangon.

Shwesettaw actually consists of two pagodas – Upper Settawya and Lower Settawya – each preserving the left-side footprints of Lord Buddha.

The festival area encompasses 60 acres among the 440.24 acres of the pagoda’s precinct. The area contains about 700 shops and more than 455 thatch-roofed bamboo huts that serve as guesthouses. The huts can be rented for K10,000 to K15,000 a night, depending on location, and can accommodate six to eight people.

The guesthouses are built along Mann Creek at the bottom of the 121-metre (400-foot) hill crowned by Upper Settawya Pagoda.

“We have also built 20 western-type hygienic toilets and 120 fly-proof restrooms for visitors to year’s festival. We plan to establish tourist-standard guesthouses for foreigners for next year’s festival,” U Myint Thura said.

He added that pagoda festival rules forbid people to drink or sell alcohol, or kill cattle. Sexual relations between couples are also banned.

Ma May Myo Zaw, a Yangon resident who had run a shop at the festival in previous years, explained that there are two ways that pilgrims can reach the hilltop pagoda

“The first way is across the Ah Htoo Bridge, which crosses Mann Creek, and the second is a trail located at the bottom of Upper Settawya Hill,” she said.

“The trail is a long and dusty footpath that heads up a stairway named Nga Phe Saung Dan, which is populated by monkeys.”

The Shwesettaw Pagoda Festival has the potential to attract not only Buddhist pilgrims but also curious foreigners, she said, adding that stakeholders in Myanmar’s travel industry should offer more pilgrimage tour packages for the festival.

“We want the world to know about the Shwesettaw festival and pagoda. It is a significant holy site where Lord Buddha came on his travels,” May Myo Zaw said.

According to the legend of the pagoda, Lord Buddha met Arahat Sicca Vanda and the King of the Naga, Nambatda, while travelling through the region that is now Magwe Division around 610 BCE. At their request, Buddha left footprints at Upper Settawya and Lower Settawya pagoda for Buddhists to pay reverence.