Northern Thailand - Chiang Mai

Due to the flooding in Bangkok we decided to skip our planned visit to this city and head straight to Chiang Mai.  As luck would have it this jewel of northern Thailand was hosting it's largest festival of the year while we were there.  This made accommodation very hard to find and we were a little nervous about the 'Secret Garden' bungalow we had booked which was about 20 minutes drive from the city centre.

The Tamarind bungalow at Secret Garden

We couldn't have been luckier.  This secluded retreat was run by a Thai-German couple Peter & Pai who were so welcoming.  Peter, a skilled carpenter, had built (or overseen the building of) a lot of the resort himself and Pai introduced us to some of the specialties of Northern Thai food (see Claire's Thai cooking blog entry).  The garden itself was a gem and it was fun to tour the neighbouring streets and get a look at Thai suburbia.

On top of getting some welcome R&R in the garden, we took in the beautiful temples of the city, got a foot massage that was a bit fishy and went rafting in the post monsoon whitewater of the Mae Tang river.  There were beautiful vistas and a baby elephant that we thought was a big rock in the river until a trunk and some eyes popped up from under the surface.



The temples of Chiang Mai

Aye, you don't give another man's woman a foot massage

Rafting the white water

Then, of course, there was the festival (called Loi Krathong).  This is held on the 12th full moon of the year and involves having a big parade with sparkly floats and lots of drumming.  Thereafter people get a little boat made of a banana leaf (called a Krathong), put an offering like a bit of money in it and float it down the river.  This is supposed to send the sins of the previous year down the river and bring good fortune for the following year.  (There are some enterprising kids downriver that fish the majority of these back out again).

Beautiful parade floats

Miss Chiang Mai was also on

Alternatively you can float your sins away in a lantern which is an incredibly beautiful sight.  These lanterns are made up of a white material sack with a parafin ring affixed to the bottom of it.  You light the parafin, the air inside the sack heats up and after a minute or so you get lift off (well that's what's supposed to happen).  A health and safety professional would have a heart attack here but for the rest of us it just makes things that bit more interesting.  Lanterns head straight into parched trees, temple facades etc. but my favourite are the ones that just fly horizontal through the crowd and the smell of singed hair that follows (and there's always somebody trying to drive a moped in the middle of all this). 

Lantern Central...

 

...equals beautiful skies

When all the excitement was over we joined the rest of the crowd in making our way home.  This was its own fun where we got to play the game of 'how many people can you fit in an open-back Toyota'.  Our new friends Vinh & Durrah got a great photo that describes it best.

The following evening Peter kindly provided some lanterns for a private festival at the Secret Garden where we floated away our own troubles.  We also got ourselves some big smiles because as everybody knows great food, a little alcohol and then setting things on fire is lots of fun.  

Let's get this thing going

Ready for takeoff

Vinh & Durrah, our fellow pyros

Thank you 'Secret Garden'!  Sad to leave but excited to go on we hopped a propeller plane for a journey over some serious terrain and into the country of Laos.