Burma is a facinating country filled with amazing people under a dreadful oppressive government.  We have traveled throughout Burma several times and have fallen in love with the amazing people! Kaung Hmudaw Paya or Royal Merit Pagoda was built by King Thalun in 1636, a unique dome-shaped stupa said to have been modelled after the perfect breast of his queen. It’s festival time and villagers around the region have set up shop outside the perimeter wall selling traditional products such as handwoven bamboo and palmleaf baskets, trays, mats and hats, hardware utensils such as sickle blades, machetes, knives and scissors, scales, mortars and pestles, crockery, and even pagoda bells. Inside, on the terrace itself, one can perambulate clockwise in the customary manner, to browse leisurely along the stalls set up in the cool shade of trees offering more traditional goods and products such as thanaka cosmetic tree bark (Murraya exotica), stones for grinding the bark into a creamy paste, cotton blankets and napkins, beads and knick-knacks, local snacks, handmade toys, both earthernware and papier mache, with a few food stalls dotted among them.