Tazaungdaing Fire Balloon Festival in Taunggyi

Last weekend, Evelyn and I travelled to the beautiful city of Taunggyi in Shan State for the Fire Balloon Festival. Thadingyut marks the beginning of the Festival of Lights for the entire following month, known as Tazaungdaing, ending at the full moon in November. The lovely people of Taunggyi and the surrounding area have decided the best way to celebrate the end of the Festival of Lights is to have a week-long fire balloon contest. 

From the pagoda at the top of the mountain above Taunggyi. The city below is on a plateau and about 1400 m above sea level.  It was so lovely to be out of Yangon and breathing this wonderful fresh air.  It does get cool at night, so it was also nice to wear jeans and a sweater for a change!

The Festival grounds at night  - more human-powered carnival rides!

You know those pretty small paper balloons you always see people in Thailand lighting to send floating into the sky? Ya - the Fire Balloon Festival is like that but done Myanmar style and way cooler. 

There are 3 types of balloons. There is a competition during the afternoon each day with balloons that are shaped like cartoons or animals. We didn't make it to the balloon grounds in time to see the afternoon competition so unfortunately I don't have any photos to share. Anyway, the main attraction is the balloons at night.  The second type of balloons are ones which are covered in tiny little candles and carry trains made up of screens with little candles on them as well. The final type of balloon carries fireworks meant to go off in the air over the crowd as it floats away. The balloons at night are a liiiittle more dangerous than the ones during the day.

The balloon is held down as the candles are attached.

The team works to light the candles which will be hung from screens below the balloon.

The balloon is lit and starts to take off. Unfortunately this one, which appears dedicated to peace, caught fire and crashed into the crowd a few minutes after taking off - oh the irony...

Each balloon has a team upwards of 50 people working for months to create their masterpiece.  Everything is made by hand, including the fireworks! So there is quite a bit of workmanship involved, not only in creating the fireworks, but also the shape and weight of the balloon must be carefully crafted so it can carry its load of fireworks or candles. It is quite a thing of pride for each team and so there are processions of trucks and drums and flags as their balloon comes out onto the field.

We were really lucky in that our colleague, Living Stone, from Yangon was home in Taunggyi for the length of the festival. His family's home faces the festival grounds and so we were able to pepper him with questions about the festival.  For example, there is a panel of judges which score each balloon over the course of the festival.  There is a small money prize - maybe $4000 USD for first place, which isn't a lot considering each ballon costs around $1500 USD to make! That is a lot of money for these communities to pull together, but it is more a matter of pride than money. For the firework balloons the judges will look at what colours the fireworks are, as some (like purple) are much harder to make, and when the fireworks go off. The height to aim for is 100 ft above the crowd for safety reasons, but you also don't want them to go off too late when the fireworks are too far away to be appreciated.  We definitely saw some balloons go off a little too late and a little too early...

You can see the firework 'cage' attached to the bottom but not yet lit.

This balloon was quite spectacular to watch and was one the better ones we saw in terms of timing of fireworks. Sometimes it was like they would all go off at once and so you lose the effect of each individual one.

Which brings me to my next point: safety. Yep, it's kinda dangerous. The day before we got there one of the firework balloons took off and then crashed into the crowd which resulted in a mini explosion as all the fireworks went off at once. Nine people were injured but no one died. However, Evelyn and I certainly took some precautions - like not standing under the balloons on the launching field and making sure we were upwind of the balloons. Even still, we had to do a bit of firework dodging!

The overall experience was amazing. It was one of those moments where you kind of sit back and ask yourself just whose life you are living, because surely it can't be yours. I am still so grateful for the opportunity to witness this event and for the hospitality of Living and his family, who really put the weekend over the top.