The Most Spectacular Festivals in Thailand: Loy Krathong and Flower Festival, Chiang Mai

As night falls, everyone seems over-excited – no doubt due to excess alcohol consumption – and fireworks explode indiscriminately, often apparently aimed at those on the opposite bank. Local citizens and tourist launch their own little boats (kratongs), which are traditionally fashioned from banana leaves and decorated with flowers, a candle, an incense stick and sparkler.

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Loy Krathong, Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai, northern Thailand’s major city, is situated on the Ping River against a backdrop of some of the country’s highes6t mountains. In many ways the loveliest of Thailand’s festivals, Loy Krathong falls on the full moon of the 12th month of Thailand’s traditional lunar calendar. The Festival of Lights is known here as Yi Peng. It venerates Buddha and it also heralds the end of the rainy season.

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Highly decorative paper machine floats, each sponsored by a different company, are paraded along the embankment before being launched onto the river to be towed downstream. Throngs of revelers crowd of riverside, bars and cafés are packed, people buy drinks, snacks and fireworks from hawkers and temporary kiosks.



The custom of sending fire balloons up into the night sky is peculiar to northern Thailand. As soon as darkness falls, paper and bamboo cylinders with firecracker tails, powered by paraffin wax, are launched in their tens of thousands – if you don’t launch at least one you haven’t really participated. At about 1 m (3.3 ft) tall, these lanterns drift up to great heights, catching the breeze and wafting across the night sky in long, spectacular skeins of light that look utterly amazing.

Flower Festival, Chiang Mai

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Northern Thailand is renowned for its flowers, and Ching Mai, its historic capital, is often referred to as The Rome of the North. The city’s location id perfect, enjoying a tropical climate that suits plants such as orchids and Bird of Paradise flowers, while the surrounding hills are high – the highest peak in Dol Suthep-Pui National Park, just outside the city, is 1,685 in (5,561 ft) – and cool, allowing blooms such as carnations and chrysanthemums to thrive.

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February is probably the best month for enthusiasts to visit – the gardens of Chiang Mai are laden with flowers, and many more grow wild in the countryside and foothills around the city. This is when the Flower Festival takes place, a carnival that attracts thousands of visitors, both Thai and foreign. For days beforehand, Chiang Mai’s main streets are busy with workers setting up pots and troughs and flowering plants. Shopkeepers, too, place plants outside their doors, and even the moat around the historic city center, the bridge and the embankments are all decorated.



The festival takes place over three days, with traditional music shows, beauty contests and flowering arranging competitions. Prizes blooms are displayed in Nong Buak HatPark, including over 3,000 species of wild and cultivated orchid. However the main event is the parade, where huge floats, decorated with flowers and topped by beautiful girls in traditional northern costumes, roll through the streets in a seemingly never-ending stream. Each float tells its own story: perhaps an event from history, or from Buddha’s life. Some floats are modern and abstract, and many have written messages. They are quite remarkable, each flower, petal and shade of color is chosen with care and arranged with love, and the pleasure and admiration on the faces of the crowds that line the streets to watch and cheer says it all

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