Source sacrée de Gaungse Kyun (Shampoo Island)

Gaungse Kyun, known as Shampoo Island, is a sacred island in the Inle Lake region of Shan State, Myanmar, where a natural oligomineral spring with traditional hair-washing properties has been central to an annual royal ceremony in which the Naung Daw U Buddha images are ritually bathed in the island's mineral water — a tradition dating to the 11th century that continues today as the Inle Lake's most important religious festival. The spring's waters, believed to leave hair exceptionally clean and lustrous, give the island its evocative English name and its central role in the annual Phaung Daw Oo Festival, when the sacred Buddha images are transported around the lake on royal barges. The remarkable floating garden ecosystem of Inle Lake, the Intha people's unique leg-rowing fishing culture, and the stilted villages provide an incomparably rich Burmese cultural setting.