*A warning to my more squeamish visitors, this story includes graphic images*

The drums: pounding.  The crowd: dense.  The colors: vibrant.   

In a word,

Overwhelming.

It was after 5:00pm, and I had spent the day on nearby Bilugyun (Ogre) Island in the heat of Myanmar (Burma) summer. I was exhausted.  So exhausted in fact, that when I caught a glimpse of a line of 150-odd monks walking toward us on the other side of the road my first instinct was to just move on.

Then, something I'd never seen before.

A row of people walking on the other side of the road.  Brightly colored garland draped over-top of an apparatus some were Read More