Shan State's highland capital — gateway to Inle Lake and the extraordinary fire-balloon festival that lights the October night sky
Taunggyi is the capital of Shan State — Myanmar's largest state — at 1,430m in the eastern highlands, with a cooler climate than lowland Myanmar and a cultural mix of Shan, Danu, Pa-O, Taung Yo, Inthar, and Chinese communities. The city is best known as the practical gateway to Inle Lake (40km south), but it merits its own visit particularly during the Tazaungdaing Festival (October/November full moon), when the sky above the town fills with enormous handmade paper hot air balloons carrying oil lanterns and, in competition entries, fireworks — the balloons are built over weeks, lit at the bas…
Taunggyi ('large mountain' in Burmese) became the capital of the Shan States under British colonial administration in the 1890s, replacing Hsipaw as the administrative centre of the consolidated Federated Shan States. The British developed it as a hill station for colonial officials seeking relief from the lowland heat, and the town's grid layout and some of its older government buildings date from this period. Shan State's political history has been among the most complex in post-independence Myanmar — the Shan State Army has maintained armed resistance since 1964, and the state has served a…