Chiang Mai: Loi Krathong Lantern Festival

The problem with Chiang Mai is that everyone we have met has raved about it; they loved the "hippy vibes", it was a "bohemian paradise"; so we arrived with high expectations.

What we found was that really, Chiang Mai is a big city with an unusually high percentage of vegetarian restaurants. As far as big cities go, it's a very nice one, but within the city there isn't really that much to see or do and the 'hippy vibes' are shrouded in pretension.

We arrived with the intention of staying for three weeks and volunteering somewhere. First we found that volunteering was a lot more difficult than we'd expected. Back in South America every hostel we stayed in had a wall full of posters advertising volunteer opportunities but here in Asia it's different. There are two types of organisation: the first are those affiliated with international volunteer recruiters that charge exorbitant fees to students for all inclusive "volunteer holidays", meaning that they're less inclined to welcome folk like us that rock up at the door with empty wallets and good intentions. The other kind are the serious organisations that require a minimum commitment of three, sometimes six months, and prefer 'skilled' volunteers that specialise in certain fields such as medicine, IT and so on. The moral of the story is: we tried to find somewhere to volunteer and failed.

Without anything meaningful to do in Chiang Mai we decided to move on after a week, but first we planned to celebrate the Loi Krathong lantern festival that happened to fall on my best friend Jenny's birthday. The festival comes at the end of the rainy season and has similar origins to the Lai Hua Fai lantern festival which we attended in Luang Prabang, Laos. Candles are lit to honour Buddha and the act of sending a wreath or float sailing down a river represents letting go of anger and negativity. 

Lanterns fill the river and to the skies.

We took to the bars to jointly celebrate Jen's birthday and the festival, starting with cocktails in Chiang Mai's seedy Night Bazaar. It took us quite a while to find a bar that wasn't full of dolled-up Thai ladies looking for some "company". Once we were suitably imbibed we walked through the night market stalls to the river where all hell was breaking loose. Fireworks were going off left, right and center, kids were pointing bottle rockets at each other, lanterns were floating, crashing and falling into the river all over, all the while traffic was still passing over the bridge - it was crazy fun. Someone thrust a handful of sparklers at us while another drunk tourists handed Ric a lit firework. British health and safety officials would have a field day. 

Enjoying the madness on the bridge.

We set off our own lantern with a birthday wish and watched the parade of elaborate floats file through the city. Atop the floats were local beauty queens on their way to be judged. 

Birthday lantern for Jen.

The festival lasted two days, during which there were concerts, fair ground rides and endless lanterns clogging up the sky. The festival here was much bigger than that in Luang Prabang and ten times more chaotic. Personally, I preferred the Laos version, which felt more intimate and traditional, although we did enjoy the excuse to get drunk and play with fireworks!