Chiang Mai tours

Chiang Mai Festivals

Dates of the main Chiang Mai festivals

The Chiang Mai flower festival

Chiang Mai Flower Festival

Chiang Mai flower festival - Flowers in Chiang Mai are at their best before the end of the cool season when this festival is held. This falls on the first weekend of February. The center of the festival is the parade held in the morning of Saturday. Floats decorated with flowers illustrate the theme chosen for the year. The beauty queens surrounded by flowers make a magical sight. The flower beds of the public gardens are bathed in colour and special displays are maintained till the end of Sunday.

Besides the flowers beauty contests are held and the Thai beauty participants will sit atop of the floats as they pass by. It is also usual to have a beauty contest for the visiting tourists as well.

2009 Chiang Mai flower festival dates

2009 Chiang Mai flower festival dates – Chiang Mai: Dates to be confirmed

Songkran – Chiang Mai

Songkran in Chiang Mai

Without a doubt Chiang Mai is the place to be during the Thai Songkran celebrations. Songkran in Chiang Mai is celebrated with so much more gusto here then in other locations around Thailand. The streets especially around the old moat area turn into a gridlocked water throwing frenzy which lasts many days. The festival marks the start of the Thai new (lunar) new year. There is a songkran procession through the streets starting from Narawat Bridge to Pra Singh temple in the old city. Apart from the water throwing this is a time for Thai merit making at the temples and house cleaning in preparation for the new year.

2008 Songkran Dates

2008 Songkran Dates – Chiang Mai: For 2008 Songkran will fall on the 13-15 April. In Chiang Mai the water throwing festivities will last many days over this period probably from the 11th to 16th. (Dates to be confirmed)

Loi Krathong – Chiang Mai

Loi Kratong

Loi Krathong is the most colourful festival of the year. It takes place over three days of the full moon of the twelfth lunar month which usually falls in November. People generally believe that by releasing floats and balloons they get rid of bad luck and give thanks to the water and heavenly elements. For the three nights of the festival people release small floats known as Krathongs with offerings that include incense, candles, flowers and money into the rivers and lakes. The River Ping becomes a stream of lights floating gently with the current. Small paper hot air balloons rise like lanterns high into the sky complementing the floats drifting on the waters. Fireworks are let off everywhere particularly on the banks of the Ping River and there is a parade each night in Chiang Mai.

2008 Loi Kratong dates

Chiang Mai Loi Kratong dates: 12 and 13 Nov

Bo Sang Umbrella Festival

The Bo Sang Umbrella & Sankampang Handicrafts Festival take place on the 20th-22nd January at Baan Bo Sang, Sankampang. The festival is in the form of a "street fair" in which the central road of the village is used, with stores on both sides. Stores are decorated in Lanna style, most with the well-known umbrellas, as well as with traditional lanterns. In addition there are contests, exhibitions, cultural performances, local entertainment, and assorted shows day and night. There is a grand procession decorated with umbrellas and local products, a variety of handicrafts for sale, northern-style kantoke meals, and the Miss Bo Sang pageant.