Loi Krathong festival in Chiang Mai

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It was time to take a break from MaeNaChorn and head to Chiang Mai for the Loi Krathong festival. Its the festival of light, lanterns are lit and float up into the sky and small boats have a candle inside them lit and are floated down the river. An amazingly beautiful festival.
We wanted to leave MaeNa Chorn at 8, so we had to get the house parents to take us to MaeCheam, then from there we would catch a yellow taxi for an hour n half to Chom Thom then another yellow taxi to Chiang Mai for another hour n half. The only problem with the yellow taxi's is they are kind of open jeeps with a roof with two rows of seats facing in. People get on and off where they want and you feel every bump along the very windy, bumpy road.
We eventually left MaeNa Chorn at 830 (Thai time!) And only just made the 9am taxi. It was our lucky day though because after 5mins in the taxi they swapped everyone into a luxury minibus for the same price. No idea why they must have needed to transfer the bus or something but it made the second part a lot more comfortable! They dropped us off on the highway and within 5mins a yellow taxi picked us up and took us directly too Chiang Mai.
When we got to Chiang Mai I thought I knew where our guesthouse was, I was wrong and we ended up in the wrong part of the old city. So instead of going straight to the guesthouse we went to a restaurant and treated ourselves to pizza, a fruit juice and fruit salad for desert (we don't get much fruit at MaeNaChorn). I'm going to go fruit juice and mango crazy for four days! I miss them soo much. The pizza was oven baked and delicious.
We then found the guesthouse and later went to discover what the Loi Krathong festival is all about. The festival is on the day of the full moon in November and starts at sunset. Boats made from banana leaves are floated down the rivers and streams, they each have flowers, incense, candles and a coin inside them. And unique to Chiang Mai they also let lanterns with a small fire inside them into the sky. There were literally hundreds of these floating into the sky, they looked so beautiful although very difficult to take a photo of. We each let up two, we first bought one each and with the help of the monks did them at the temple. That was my favorite. (We bought one each and were given one each). Then we walked to the river which was extremely crowded and let the others float into the air from there. There were some floating into trees, cables, street lamps and only just making it over peoples heads. There were fire works but for whatever reason they don't go very high here and are seriously loud. Plus alot of them don't go up at all.
It was so busy, you take small steps continuously and it kills your knees. Someone on a scooter ripped Camillas lantern by the river so she had to buy another. Someone was helping me with mine and accidentally tore a hole in it then it nearly took someones head off.
Slowly walking back to the guesthouse we found ourselves walking through the red light area. Its so sad to see so many young Thai girls with old, fat and ugly western men!

Pancakes for breakfast! Pancakes for breakfast! Whoo I didn't have steamed rice and vegies for breakfast! I had banana pancakes and maple syrup and yes I know when I was in Indonesia I had pancakes every morning for breakfast and nearly went crazy but the same is going to happen with rice and vegies.
So after the excitement of having banana pancakes for breakfast and 3 mango smoothies a day and a few mango's to eat there was a festival happening. During the day not much really happened so we bought some sticky rice and sat on the roof of the guesthouse relaxing. I wrote some postcards/xmas cards and posted some things home. It was alot easier to post this time than it was from Kuching!
After having dinner at a cute little cafe we walked to the markets. Camilla and Sarah did alot more shopping and we literally walked around until we could walk no more. We tried a delicious banana pancake role. A banana wrapped in a pancake covered in chocolate, nuts, dried fruit and a bit more chocolate.
Again there were lanterns floating in the sky and a parade around the streets. I think alot of the parade is locals dressing in their traditional clothes and playing music with handmade instruments. Most of them don't seem to look very happy but some of them do abit of dancing and there are loads of lady boys that love to have their photos taken.

The festival was finished so we kind of just had a relaxing day before going back to the orphanage and the craziness and work. After breakfast we sat by the river with mango smoothies for an hour. Then I wanted my eyebrows waxed but when someone says they can do it then you lay there explaining to them how to do it, it really isn't very relaxing. And strangely it costs more than a 1hr massage.
So anyway we headed to the market bought some more sticky rice and snacks then sat on the roof top for the afternoon. I wanted to go to the Saturday night market as its cheaper than the weekday ones and I wanted some clothes. But after spending the last two nights walking around markets for four hours I certainly didn't want to go for long. In the end Camila bought the picture she wanted and I bought a pair of trousers then we filled up on some deep fried goodness that we had know idea what it was one last time.
At six on the dot everyone and I mean everyone stands perfectly still for the national anthem to be played. No matter if they are in the middle of buying something are what they are doing everyone stops, this feels really strange when you are in a packed out market. Then it was time to fight our way through the enormous amount of people arriving at the market to get back and do nothing at the guesthouse.

We had to get up early to take the unreliable yellow taxi's back to MaeNaChorn. We were meeting Ingo a volunteer from the other Raintree orphanage at 730 for breakfast, he was going to be staying with us until he could get taken back to MaeHae.
We had breakfast, bought sticky rice and chili for the journey and searched for one last mango smoothie on our way to the bus station. We failed to find a smoothie! The area we were in just wasn't touristy enough.
Getting back to MaeCheam was easy, no waiting around for long and the usual crammed taxi's with over twenty people in them, people squeezing to sit in that space that really just isn't big enough then hanging off the back or sitting on the roof for an hour an half. But that was the easy part we had to wait three hours for one of the house parents to come and pick us up from 45 mins away! Then he needed to go shopping at the market so it was after 5 when we eventually got back. Just in time to put the laundry in (i swear next time I am just doing hand washing by the time you restart the washing machine four times, fill and drain the water twice then spin dry it its quicker!) before dinner. After prayer the kids had to help prep the food for the HongKong group. Its going to be yummy!

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