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CM Flower Festival

February 2015

Our time in Chiang Mai coincided with the city’s yearly flower festival, which featured parade floats made of flowers and pretty orchid displays in a local park. After enjoying the blossoms, we strolled though the Saturday night street market, held in what was (and still is) the silversmiths’ district just south of the old city.

Setting up the stage, by a gate in the old city's walls, where dignitaries would kick off the annual Chiang Mai Flower Festival a few hours later

A parade float made of flowers, with goats for the Year of the Goat and a picture of the Thai king's oldest daughter

Special flower arrangements in a city park for the festival

A special hut woven from sticks, with the inside drapped in Spanish moss and pots of orchids

Plants that never bloom at the same time at home: petunias, marigolds, and poinsettias

Lots of people were enjoying the park on a nice day

On a nearby street, dancers dressed as goats for the Year of the Goat

Chiang Mai's Saturday night street market

The Saturday night market takes place in what has long been the city's silversmith district, marked with this big silver decoration

A little good luck charm made of money hanging in a vendor's stall (all Thai bills have an image of the king)

Selling modern versions of some ethnic groups' traditional clothing

This very nice man makes dragons and other clever figures entirely from twisted rope fibers

An earnest young street musician

Frying up delicious Chinese-style dumplings

This musician accompanied himself on guitar by playing a drum with his foot