Flower Festival

The Chiang Mai Flower Festival occurs every year in February and fortunately our stay coincided with this year's event. The flower beds around town are especially gorgeous and showcase many varieties of flowers, some of which are only found in Chiang Mai. The focus of this festival is the public garden of Suan Buak Haad on the southwest corner of the moat. The road next to the moat by the park is closed to traffic so vendors can set up their displays of plants, Thailand orchids and other flowers, garden decorations and endless varieties of food.

A main event of the Flower Festival is the Flower Parade. Similar to the Rose Parade, there are numerous floats with every inch covered in real flowers. Unlike most American parades, this parade lasted half the day. The parade route is quite long, which allows for many opportunities to see it. The parade is packed with people dressed in traditional and festive attire performing dances or musical numbers . At the end of the parade route the floats are moved to the festival area in the old city to allow the public to see them up close and even touch them. We examined the floats closely, admiring the creativity and appreciating the countless hours needed to create such works of art.

The vendor area offered a plethora of flowers both on display and available for purchase. Similar to our county fairs, people brought their flowers and plants for judging, and the public was able to view and take pictures of the prize botanicals, which also included an impressive collection of Bonsai trees.

We made a few purchases of local goods and tried out some new cuisine. We passed up the octopus on a stick and squid cakes, and settled for more familiar tastes such as chicken and fruit.