Dear friends,

On the 2nd day, I visited the Buddha Garden located on the mountain. There, it was until 6 that I could not see morning light. I climbed the mountain at about 6:11 AM and reached the highest peak at about 6:48 AM. I could see the whole town from the mountain peak.

The above video and photos below were taken from the top of the mountain.

Another places I visited was the pagoda built on the top of a rock and labyrinth hill. The first place was 14 miles away from Pin Laung, which was about 45 minutes drive. The pagoda was built on a rock the base of which was corroded by water already.

Then, I visited 'Labyrinth hill'. There, I could climb the hill to see the view from above and also I could enter the cave beneath. There were many cave routes which could lead to other outlets; the inside route were similar and could be misleading. Hence, it was called Labyrinth cave, I think.

Lastly, I visited a Shan village near the Labyrinth cave and talked to the monks at the village monastary. I foud the village had big brick houses.

I place I liked most is the Labyrinth cave I think. The cave was long and beautiful with patterns on the wall. It had three to four entrances; only two of them were open not to get people misled. And because I belonged to Shan people I loved to talk to Shan people and visit their villages. It was a sad fact that many of the youth fled to work in Thailand because of the military law and lack of opportunity in the region. I found that Pinlaung had many beautiful and natural places and also trekking places. I tried to visit a waterfall but I had to give up the plan because it can only be reached by trekking in forest. I think the town could become a tourist attraction when the country is peaceful without wars.

@princekham
31st Dec 2025
Myanmar

Dear friends,
In the festival, there is fire balloon competition and there are three types of competition - animal figures balloons competition in day time and fireworks and decorative balloons at night time. And yesterday I was able to record one of decorative type balloons sending into the air.
The balloon itself was decorated with lanterns and also carried lanterns of some figure - the figure in the video is the prince shooting an arrow at a spider, which are characters from a legendary story.
The balloon festival is held annually at the festival ground on the south of the town.
@princekham
7th Nov 2025

မယ်ဟောင်ဆောင် တောင်ပေါ်က မယ်ဟောင်ဆောင် တောင်ပေါ်က Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu စေတီလေးပါ။

တောင်ကြီးမြို့ ဝဋ်ကြွေးကြေ ဘုရားတောင်ကုန်းပေါ်က မြင်ရတဲ့ ရှုခင်းဖြစ်ပါတယ်။

တောင်ကြီး ဓမ္မမဟာပဗ္ဗတရိပ်သာမှာ အသုံးပြုဖြစ်သွားတဲ့ အင်ဂျင်ဝိုင်မီးဖိုလေးတွေပါ။
_{Uploaded using 3Speak Mobile App}

Dear friends,
The video was taken at Dhamma Mahā Pabbata Vipassana meditation centre, Taunggyi, Shan state, Myanmar, after Sunday meditation session (4/8/2024). _{Uploaded using 3Speak Mobile App}

Dear friends,

This year, our Shan New Year Celebration was held at Loi Lon (Pyin Nyar Bawdi) Social Welfare Center near my town, Taunggyi, Myanmar. At the center, there are about five hundred students, who came from towns and villages all over Shan State to stay and study there at the center. The number could increase due to the current clashes between the military and the Northern alliances in Northern Shan state.

Shan New Year is one of the most important festivals for the Shan people, who are the dominant ethnic group in eastern Myanmar. Normally, Shan New Year Celebration is full of fun and entertainment and normally held as a festival at Shan Literature and Culture Association's compound. However, there have been tragic incidents caused by the wars in Northern Shan state and so this year, we don't celebrate like before. As part of the ceremony, they offered lunch to the Buddhist monks then there was a reward-giving ceremony for those who had just passed matriculation this year. Then, the visitors were treated with lunch and there were Kinnara and Kinnari and Toenayar dances for the completion of the ceremony. Kinnara and Kinnari and Toenayar are mythical creatures and both dances are regarded to bring auspiciousness to all. Below are some of the photos taken there. Thank you.

(Above photos) The ceremony was held in the main hall.

(Above photos) Kinnari Kinnara and Toenayar dances.

(Above photos) Some of my shots.

(Above photo) Shan Long Drum set

Thank you for reading.

@princekham
Myanmar
15th Dec 2023

Haipa waterfall is located at about 15 miles from Mong Hsu, Shan State, Myanmar. It is composed of levels of waterfalls and is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Myanmar. It is on the Pang River and there are many other waterfalls beside the big one. The water was a little muddy because I visited there last month during the raining season. It is more beautiful in winter and summer time.

@princekham
Myanmar
13th Nov 2023.

@princekham
Myanmar
30th Oct 2023

@princekham
Myanmar
29th Oct 2023.