Taungbyone Nat Festival

Nat Festival is a huge competition held in Taungbyone, Myanmar. It is a colourful competition which you must participate in on your Myanmar trip. The competition is well known round the entire moon week in August and draws hundreds of home and overseas vacationers each year.

About 20km some distance from Mandalay, you could visit Taungbyone via means of street or boat. There are a few Nat or spirit fairs held throughout Myanmar every year however the maximum sacred competition is Taungbyone Nat Festival. Many pilgrims come to Taungbyone at that point to hope for proper luck, loosen up and experience the competition. In the Nat competition, the performers, called “nat kadaw”, are frequently transvestites and transgender such a lot of locals and overseas vacationers name this “LGBT Festival” or “GAY Festival”.

In Burmese belief, anyone who's married need to be a part of withinside the competition or ship a consultant via means of hiring a nat kadaw to hook up with the Nat. Nat kadaw frequently dance to bass from early withinside the day, they drink alcohol and preserve a few conventional gadgets or huge candles to expose their respects to the nat. Many stalls are opened across the competition, they frequently promote food, sweets, and offerings.

Location: Taungbyone

Time: full moon week in August