The festival has been celebrated every year since Pagan period and also grown in popularity among the growing number of foreign tourists visiting Myanmar.
Traditionally locals don a colourfully decorated, life-size elephant costume, welcoming the end of Thadingyut with a unique array of dance and acrobats.
Men take their places inside the figure and dance around the town to the accompanied by drums, oboe, cymbals, brass gongs and bamboo clappers.
The elephant dancers circles three times at the foot of the hill to pay homage to the Shwethalyaung Pagoda and then compete in front of a panel of judges.
[1] On the full moon day, thousands of pilgrims carry small paper elephants 900 feet (275 metres) uphill to the pagoda on top of the Tha Lyaung hill.