CHIANG MAI FESTIVAL

Chiang Mai celebrates many annual festivals. Three are particularly lively and lovely. These are the "Flower Carnival", the first Friday, Saturday and Sunday of every Febuary: "Songkran", 13-15 April each year; and "Yee Peng" on the full moon day of the twelfth lunar month, generally mid-November.

• The flower Carnival celebrates the period when Chiang Mai's temperate and tropical flowers are in full bloom and is characterised by colorful floral floats and parades.
  
  
• Songkran celebrates the traditional Thai New Year. Chiang Mai celebrates Songkran with special elation in a 3-day carousel of religious merit-making, pilgrimages, beauty parades, dancing and uninhibited, good-natured water throwing.
  
  
• Yee Peng is Thailand's loveliest festival when, under the full moon, people float away onto rivers, canals, lakes and streams banana-leaf boats bearing a lighted candle, incense, a flower and small coin to honour water spirits and float away the past year's sins.