Chiang Mai- Day One

For the next part of our Thailand trip, we headed to Chiang Mai.  We travelled to Chiang Mai via the green bus with VIP tickets.  For those of you that don't know, I have a serious case of motion sickness, so all modes of transportation have to be researched fully and drugs prepared.  I never go anywhere without 3 different types of motion sickness medicine and ginger chews.  Everyone assured us that the green bus was the way to go.  I indeed, did not get sick.  It wasn't the smoothest of bus rides, but it was a very windy road.  The child in front of me didn't fair so well but luckily, I drugged myself.  The bus ride was suppose to take 4 hours but we left at 7:30 in the morning and made it in 3.  Thankfully do to our early arrival, we had the whole day to explore.  And explore we did.  We were dead on our feet that evening.
Upon checking into our hotel, Tapae Place Hotel, and they let us know that it was the annual flower festival.  We haven't experienced a festival in Asia yet and were anxious to see what all it entailed.  We were told that the flower parade would start at 4:30 that afternoon.  So, we made sure to be somewhere around that time with a good view of the parade.  We set off on foot to visit the many temples that were on my list of must sees.  Of course while walking we spotted several more temples that I needed to pop in and visit.

Wat Muen Larn was our first stop

Wat Phan On

Wat Lamchang

Wat Chiang Man

Wat Phra Singh

So, after we had our fill of Wats for the day, we waited for the parade.  Apparently in typical Thai fashion, the parade started almost 2 hours late.  This parade lasted over 4 hours!  We only watched for about an hour and had to eat.  But after dinner, we were able to see some more of the parade while we were getting a foot massage.  Here are some shots of the parade.

Stay tuned for more on Chiang Mai.