Chiang Mai - lattern festivals

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I headed back to Chiang Mai for the annual Loy Krathong & Yee Peng Lantern Festivals, which were definitely trip highlight. Loy Krathong is celebrated across Thailand and involves releasing krathong - decorated rafts with candles - into the river. In Chiang Mai, Yee Ping is at the same time and involves a variety of lanterns, including releasing paper lanterns into the sky...there are so many on the main nights that they look like stars (and Chiang Mai has to cancel flights on these nights to prevent issues with aircraft). It's one big celebration for several days, with fireworks, parades, etc. in addition to the lanterns and floating candles - it was beautiful, colorful, a bit chaotic and absolutely fantastic.

I also did a day trip to Wat Phabatpuphadang (one of its several names) - a less visited temple at the sight of a Buddha foot print. It's built 1000m up on a mountain with dramatic cliffs - it's quite stunning and an interesting site with stupas built on top of various rocks at the top of the mountain.

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Photos

Looking up 1000m at Wat Phabatpuphadang on the top of the mountain - getting up there involves the scariest pickup truck ride I've ever been on (straight up...and our driver was in the wrong gear so we rolled down a frightening portion backwards) and clim
bing a lot of steps