Friday night I went with a group of friends to the opening of the festival. I didn't bring my camera and kind of regretted it, my iPhone couldn't get a decent photo of the stage show. It was too dark anyways to get good photos of the flowers on display - you really need to see them in natural light to do them justice.
The festival was a lot of fun, similar to a carnival but flower-themed. There were flower displays, plants and bulbs for sale, all kinds of yummy food and drinks, stage shows and even a small ferris wheel and rollar coaster! We had a blast playing shooting games and I even won a few prizes. We got to watch the "Miss Chiang Mai Flower" beauty pageant - there were about 30 beautiful Thai ladies dressed to the nines, covered in flowers and doing their best pageant walk and speech. Later in the evening 3 were crowned. There was also a great band playing as well as traditional Thai dancers.
The next day was the parade which started a little early for my tastes - 8 am. I've been getting up at 7am everyday to go to school and I knew the floats would be on display for the remainder of the festival. In the afternoon I went to take pictures of the flowers in the sunlight and all the floats were there and impressive as ever! 22 in total and all COVERED in intricate works of art made of flowers, fruits, vegetables and painted rice. The place was packed, much more then the night before and there were people everywhere taking pictures in front of all the beautiful displays.
I wandered a little further then I had the night before and realized the festival was actually 5x what I had already seen. Booth after booth of clothes, jewellery, orchids for sale, food and all kinds of interesting things. I bought myself some noodles, sushi and a very yummy cupcake for dinner and wandered back toward my hotel. It was a crazy night since the Saturday Walking Street was also happening just a few blocks away and the energy in the city was palpable. People come from all over to attend this festival, it was the largest I have seen since I've been here.
Below are some photos of the beautiful flowers on display as well as the floats. For all you flower lovers out there - this was a real treat! I was kind of ridiculously happy to be around such beauty, I'm so glad I was here for this festival. It's my last weekend in Chiang Mai and couldn't have been spent at a better place.
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