Yangon - Proceeds from hair donated by Myanmar women worth 200 million kyat (180,000 dollars) have been used to repair bridges leading to one of the country's most sacred pagodas, media reports said Sunday. Some 100,000 women donated 2,400 kilograms of hair to fund the rebuilding of 16 bridges along a 26-kilometre stretch of road leading in to Alaungdaw Kathapa National Park, home to the Alaungdaw Kathapa Pagoda - one of the most reverred Buddhist sites in Myanmar's Sagaing Division, the Myanmar Times reported.
The donated hair was sold to Chinese merchants in Mandalay for about 100,000 kyat (90 dollars) per viss (1.6 kilograms).
Women's hair is a popular export item from Myanmar, one of the world's poorest countries that has been under military rule since 1962.
So far, 11 out of 16 bridges to the pagoda have been repaired and the remaining five are expected to be completed by early 2010, the pagoda's abbot Sayadaw Damadaya Ashin Waryamarnanda told the weekly newspaper.
In March 2009, organisers of the bridge repair project called on women to donate their hair and quickly set up 13 hair donation centres in Sagaing Division townships.
"The idea of donating hair came earlier this year from the women who lived along the road. They wanted to contribute but they had no money, so they asked sayadaw to accept their hair instead," Sayadaw Damadaya Ashin Waryamarnanda said.
Myanmar, also called Burma, is a predominatly Buddhist country.
In September, 2007, Buddhist monks led peaceful protests against the military regime's mismanagement of the economy, prompting a bloody crackdown that left more than 30 dead and many injured.
Since the crackdown, many temples and pagodas have had their monkhoods reduced in numbers, or infirtrated by "government monks," according top a recent Human Rights Watch report.
