Chiang Mai Festivals

The Songkran Festival
This festival marks the traditional Thai New Year day, on April 13th. On this day, the Thais will say "Happy New Year" to one and all by pouring water on each other, friends and strangers alike. Considering that April is the bottest month of the Thai year, the splashing of cool water is more welcome than not, even of some tive unespected. It's no wonder that the water festival is the most popular tradition celebrated rigorously nationwide. But nowhere has the spirit caugh on and turned into as beautiful and meaningful tradition as in Chiang Mai.

The Loy krathong Festival
This festival is held every full moon night of November in the cool season with cloudless sky, when the full moon is supposed to be the most beautiful in the whole year. The festival is held nationwide to honor the goddess of the river, to thank and apologize to her for the uses and abuses of the water ways by human. A symbolic boat, the krathong in the form of small bowl made of leaves or wax paper containing lighted candles, joss stick, flowers and some coins, is set afloat in a body of water, preferably a river. The token boat is meant to be the carrier of offerings to the river goddess. At the same time, the boat is also supposed to bear away the owner's bad luck and misfortunes.

Again, Chiang Mai will be choking with celebrants. The city organizes a three day annual festival, with Beautiful Krathong Competition, Beauty Contest and Public Krathong Floating Ceremony. But for the young men on the street, it's the time when the fair maidens come out with their "Krathongs" to line up the Ping River banks. Their hopeful faces glow radiantly in the candlelight when making their secret wishes, before setting their boats of hope on water. By midnight, the whole river gleams with reflection of the full moon and glitters with light specks from the thousands of krathong candles gently floating down stream.

The Yi Peng Festival
Chiang Mai also has a unique tradition of its own for the full moon of November, which is called "Yi Peng" the the tradition is celebrated by decorating the houses with multicolor, glass-paper lanterns and launching colorful, paper balloons up into the sky. All through the day and night, bright colored balloons will take to the lky from small villages and towns of Chiang Mai in constant streams.

The paper balloon is made up of dyed kite-paper, fashioned into a giant shop-ping-bag shape. Hot gas from burning coal oil is funneled into the inverted bag of the balloon. When filled up to capacity, the balloon is released carrying up a long string of firecrackers and bunch of fireworks with relayed timers to set off at intervals. When released at night, the balloon also carries up brightly-lit lan-tern. On Loy Krathong night, the sky over Chiang Mai is a twinkling with lantern lights and fireworks let off from clouds of balloons all night long.

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