Chiang Mai Flower Festival | Thailand

Feb 14

The Chiang Mai Flower Festival is held the first weekend of February each year, showcasing the areas beautiful array of tropical and temperate flowers in full bloom. We just happened to be spending the weekend of February 6-8, 2015 in the city of Chiang Mai the weekend of this year’s festival – the 39th.

Starting Thursday we could see things beginning to set up. Already there were fresh flowers everywhere and the stage was set for the weekends performances.

Watching a stage rehearsal brought back a rush of memories from years of performance rehearsals with my dance students – at times like this I really miss it. These kids were so impressive with their rapt attention to the directors.

On Friday at Thapae Gate the opening ceremonies & performance of the group we had seen in rehearsals the night before kicked off the weekend celebrations.

Walking back to our room that night we saw floats being prepared for the parade. We learned that many would be up all night putting on the final touches.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to walk a few blocks from our hotel to Nawarat bridge – the start of the parade. Because of the fresh flowers the parade begins at 8:00 am before the day gets too hot and the flowers start to wilt.

We were just a few yards from the judges stand where each group stopped to perform. The advantage to the slow pace of the parade was the chance for everyone in the crowd to get lots of pictures.

People watching is always fun and in this case it was sometimes more interesting than the actual parade.

Everyone was having such a great time – it was a joy to see!

Once again we were awed by the kindness, peacefulness and respect of the Thai people. Other than a few foreigners, there was no pushing and shoving. Even with the large crowd, there was a patience and easy taking of turns so everyone could get pictures and great viewpoint.

Over 39 floats decorated with fresh flowers made it almost feel like being at the Rose Bowl Parade. The artistic talent of the Lanna Thai kingdom was impressively showcased in the floats and displays.

The people here are so beautiful. They range from very pretty to gorgeous – I think it’s the smiles! Everyone looks beautiful when they smile from the heart.

Things were moving so slowly we decided to walk up the street instead of waiting for the parade to come to us, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves taking it all in.

On Sunday night the stage was alive at Thapae Gate with music performances, a light show, and fireworks to finish off another awesome weekend in Chiang Mai.