A man and two women were selling flowers as an offering at the gate of Shwemawdaw Pagoda

Man and to women selling offerings — Flower vendor at Shwemawdaw Pagoda

The Shwemawdaw Pagoda is built on top of a small hill, so the entrance to the temple grounds is located at the foot of the hill. From there, I could not see the hall, let alone the stupa. Although something was written on the top of the entrance, it was written only in Burmese characters, so it was difficult for a foreign traveler to determine that this was the entrance to the pagoda if he did not know. The reason why I recognized it was because there were people holding flowers that seemed to be offerings hanging around the entrance. Even though it was difficult to identify the entrance to the pagoda, it was relatively easy for me to know that this was the entrance to something.

The people hanging out at the entrance all had large flowers in their hands. These were flowers to be offered in the temple. In other words, the people hanging around are flower sellers. In Japan, people may offer monetary offerings when visiting shrines and temples, but they do not often offer flowers. Even temples in Myanmar have boxes that look like money-offering boxes. However, it seems that people in Myanmar often offer flowers rather than money.

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