Celebrating Lantern Festival in Chiang Mai

This blog post is for those planning to watch and enjoy the famous Lantern Festival in Chiang Mai. Me and my friend prepared for the trip at least 3 months prior to the Festival which happened last 25 November 2015. We arrived in Chiang Mai on the 23rd and arranged several day trips to keep us busy while waiting for the main event. 

On the 25th and after our Doi Inthanon Tour, we rested a bit in our hotel and afterwards went to the streets to see the happenings. We knew beforehand that there was a paid event in a certain university for the lantern to be released together. It had quite an expensive entrance fee of 100 USD. We wanted to meet other travelers and find a transport to take us to the university just so we could sit outside its gates and watch but we were unfortunate to find one. This is why we just opted to be in Chiang mai's old city. We were lucky this time to have seen a lot of people in the streets with their own lanterns. Though they did not release it simultaneously, it was still an awesome sight.

Here are my amateur photos taken during the Yi Peng or Festival of Lights. Locals and visitors released thousands of lanterns in the sky while making a wish. Some even wrote their wishes on the lanterns before lighting and releasing them. The sky truly turned into a sea of little lanterns floating away. I almost cried tears of joy to see such a mesmerizing sight until my friend "judgingly" looked at me. Hahaha. In fact, it was more lovelier and magical in real life than how I captured them. 

What a big crowd that night. This made me realize it was not so bad that we weren't able to go to the university where the paid event was. 

Lanterns were sold throughout the streets. Its price ranged from 100-300 Baht.

We chose to sit in a mini park where some were also releasing their lanterns. The lanterns were supposed to be released at 9pm when the northern skies would be officially a no fly zone. But then, people started releasing as early as 7pm. This caused some night flights to be delayed or cancelled.

The park had this big street light which was directly in front of us. This explains the bright color on the side of my photos. The little bright dots are all lanterns.

Friends and families helped each other to prepare, light up and release their lanterns. Of course, to mark the moment, photos were taken :)

I was trying to achieve a photo of hands attempting to reach for the stars. :P

This festival also coincides with Loy Krathong. Last 2014, I celebrated my first Loy Krathong in Phuket and I wrote about it here. This time, I'm very happy to have witnessed it in another Thai province. 

So after our necks were tired of staring at the bright stunning sky, we headed down to a place near the river and scouted for Krathongs on sale. There were a lot of them sold in different styles and shapes. 

We then headed down to the river bank to light up and have them float away. The Iron Bridge was full of people and hardly any vehicle can come through. It was a truly festive atmosphere to be in Chiang Mai at that time.

Someday, I hope you readers can also be there and experience the magical event. Thank you and 'til next blog! :)