Kyaukse is
30 miles (50 km) to the south of
Mandalay,
surrounded by rice paddies.
The town is particularly famous for its
annual elephant festival with the
elephant dance, which is held
in October.
For this reason there are
two white plaster elephants at the
entrance to the village to greet
visitors. Legend has it that King Anawrahta pitched camp near Kyaukse as
he was traveling back from China.
The
ruler had brought various
relics back form China with him, and he
wanted to build a pagoda in a place
worthy of them. He thus strapped the
relics to the back of his elephant and
let him go with the injunction that he guides him to a
suitable location for the construction
of the pagoda.
The elephant went
straight towards the hill east of Kyaukse and knelt down there, so King
Anawrahta built the Shwe-tha-lyaung
Pagoda, a shrine commemorating the
Buddha’s death, on this spot.
In honor
of that elephant, the inhabitants of Kyaukse celebrate Hsin-pwe,
the
“Elephant Festival”, with the elephant
dance, each year. Elephant
costumes are fashioned from bamboo,
cloth and paper, and two men climb
inside each one to perform an elephant
dance.
Halfway up to the Shwe-tha-lyaung
Pagoda, at the top of the mountain of
the same name, there’s a meditation
monastery built in the shape of a ship.
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