Chiang Mai Loy Krathong Festival Opening Ceremony 2015
3 min readChiang Mai Loy Krathong Festival Opening Ceremony 2015
This year, I celebrated the Loy Krathong Festival in Chiang Mai. This is my second time visiting Chiang Mai since 2004 and my second time celebrating Loy Krathong Festival in Thailand.
The Loy Krathong Festival takes place on the night of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. In English calendar, it is usually falls in the month of November. The difference in celebrating Loy Krathong in Chiang is they celebrate it together with Yi Peng celebration. Yi Peng is Lanna (northern Thailand) celebration and they celebrate with using sky lanterns (khom loi). That’s why many people mistaken Yi Peng celebration as Loy Krathong and that explains why only Northern Thailand cities celebrate with sky lanterns.
Loy Krathong festival is to place floating “krahtong” into the river to pay respect to the river. The river is major source of food and income to Thais for centuries and Loy Krathong is the time of the year to repay respect. That’s why you can see many Thais gathered on the river banks and start to put their “krathongs” onto the river.
Loy Krathong celebration in Chiang Mai this year is the biggest so far. Annually, thousands of sky lanterns are set and it lit up the skies of Chiang Mai. For safety reasons, this year there was no flights allowed after 9 pm during the Yi Peng celebrations in Chiang Mai. This year is the first year of such rules.
Most roads to the city of Chiang Mai are blocked and most of the roads are very congested. We had to do a short walk to Loy Krathong Festival Opening Ceremony to avoid the traffic. The official opening ceremony is on 24 Nov 2015.
There are thousands of tourists from around the world at the opening ceremony of Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai. Most of them are couples, friends and also families.
There are beautiful huge “krathong” with colourful lights at the opening ceremony and tourists take turn taking pictures in front of it. The venue is packed but well control.
The opening ceremony is a short one with speeches, performances and dances before the fireworks starts to brighten the sky.
After the official opening ceremony, the festival starts with the street parade. This is not the largest street parade as the official street parade is on the third day of the festival which is on 26 Nov 2015. This is the first day of three days of non-stop Loy Krathong Festival in Chiang Mai.
Day two is the highlight of the Loy Krathong Festival as the locals and the tourists celebrate Yi Peng with style. Thus, thousands of sky lanterns are lit up into the sky under the bright full moon. We will write our experience on Yi Peng soon, stay tuned and thanks for reading.
Chiang Mai maybe someday I’ll do for visit hehe
So many people! And the colours! Wish i was there to enjoy the festive season too
Loy Krathong really happening in Chiang Mai. The Thai people really dress well to pay respect to the river. Next year hope can join the festival in Thailand too.
This festival is so colourful filled with so many lights! Such a great experience to be able to celebrate this festival 🙂
Beautiful! I am planning to visit to chiang mai next year. 😀
nice shot of the fireworks! 😀 looks like i gotta visit chiangmai next year!
It looks so colorful and warm with all the krathong and such. I wish that I can join it too one day later. 😀
Oh so happening there. Hehe. Never expected that many people to throng Chiang Mai for Loy Krathong. Need to keep this in my list one day!
Woohoo! I spotted a handsome boy!! Yum! Hahahah..
I have not been to thailand Loy Kratong Festival before, will be a good experience to visit there again.
Nice festival! more reasons to visit Chiang mai! 😉
Haven’t gotten the opportunity to visit Chiang Mai but hope to in the future… this is so beautiful!!!
Love the beautiful colorful night during the night festival =D I can see many handsome and pretty faces too XD
It looks so happening. I should plan my trip there during Loy Krathong Festival so that my Little Angels able to enjoy the parade.
Glad you enjoyed loy krathong, one of the best eye opening experience I had for my first time traveling out of Malaysia 🙂
Looks very festive. I would like the opportunity to visit Chaing Mai during Loy Krathong too to experience for myself the sounds and sights.
Thailand has always been one of my favourite place for culture and most importantly, food. Easily one of my favourite places in Asia.
Everything looks so grand. And the people look so beautiful too. Bet the festival was loud.
Didn’t know about Loy Krathong Festival until I read your post, would like to experience it also 🙂
is this the most recent event which you went thailand for? So fast blogged already! nice sharing, makes me feel like i’m there myself, which unfortunately i’m not ><
amazing celebration there, and really good looking people too haha
You are so lucky to join this festival! I hope I can join too in future.