Chiang Mai Flower Festival Feb 3-5, 2012
The annual flower festival on the first weekend in February is always something to look forward to and this year the floats seemed to be much better and the sound systems not so crazily loud. We watched the parade when it was further on from the start where there were mainly Thais lined up to watch or sitting on chairs which they had brought. Some were even sitting on cardboard or paper at the side of the street and there was a picnic atmosphere to the whole event with food vendors selling their wares. We are always amazed at the creativity of the design of the floats and how the flowers are used, and this year there seemed to me a greater use of "live" flowers. We enjoyed watching one young vendor selling ice-cream; she was beautifully made up and remained calm, gently smiling amidst the throng of her customers and the heat. Every customer was served in the order they arrived and she handed each customer their ice-cream with a gracious smile.
The video is probably too long but I like the contrasts of the old and new and too many pictures so feel free to quickly hit the right arrow or just close it :-) --- Tom
Here are some videos from the parade:-
Some pictures too
