Children celebrating during the traditional Thingyan Lighting Festival in Yangon, Myanmar, in 2020. - Xinhua
YANGON (Xinhua): Myanmar will resume a floating water festival in Inle Lake, a tourist site in Shan state, after a three-year pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic, an official from the Shan State Directorate of Hotels and Tourism said on Wednesday (March 29).
The floating Thingyan water festival will be held from April 13 to April 16 in Nan Pan village of Nyaungshwe township in Taunggyi District of Shan state.
"The distinctive feature of the floating water festival is to splash water to each other in boats," U Htin Aung Naing, director of Shan State Directorate of Hotels and Tourism, told Xinhua.
The four-day celebration is aimed at increasing tourist arrivals in the Inle area and promoting the traditional floating water festival, he said. It will feature entertainment programmes of well-known artists and local dance troupes, and charity foods will also be served during the festival, he added.
The last edition of the floating water festival that was held in 2019 was successful, attracting a large number of visitors.
Myanmar received more than 233,400 international tourists last year, up from some 130,000 visitors registered in 2021, official figures showed.
