Today began with a visit to Chiang Mai Zoo, to pay a visit to see the city’s most famous residents. After a brief rest, I stepped out again to witness what the final night of the Yi Peng Festival had in store.
After following the parade from up front, I got distracted.
Yes, it was food… but…
Fortunately there were more appetizing food on sale.
Okay, enough food. Back to the parade.
Watching so many people release khomloys into the sky (and the fact this was the last day of the festival), I told myself I better release a paper lantern myself now. I still hadn’t done it yet! The past three days, I was busy clicking away and it made me feel like I was on assignment, on work (which in some ways, it is).
I asked a local if I could borrow a light and instead she kindly shows me how to light the khomloy. She even helped hold it with me as the lantern filled up with hot air.
As I walked back up to the main road, I kept telling myself with the disappointment of missing the events at Sansai that I had to come back again and do it right. More importantly, after the ‘assignment’ at Mae Jo, I will not spend all my time taking photos. Instead, I’m going to have fun releasing paper lanterns and playing with fireworks — and I won’t be alone 😉
I went back to the main road for a few more photos.
The fact that I had to split my last day in Chiang Mai into two posts is proof that this was a long day for me. I was quite tired, still feeling a bit feverish, but through it all — I was more than content with the photographs!
Tomorrow morning, I would head further up north to Chiang Rai and embark on the remainder of my journey across Thailand.
As a parting bonus, here’s a video of the some of the sights from today’s Grand Parade:
Yesterday evening was nice. Today was the last day of Loy Krathong, and I’m guessing tonight’s events were going to be a ‘grand finale’ to the festival. But first, I decided to move out of Rux Thai and take a single room at Centerplace Guesthouse because I was going to be out all day and tomorrow morning, I would leave for Chiang Rai.
A single room at Centerplace Guesthouse costs just 200 baht (Rs. 300/$6.7/€4.5).
After transferring my bags, I decided to spend my morning at Chiang Mai Zoo, which is en route to Doi Suthep.
Now I knew Chiang Mai Zoo wasn’t going to be as impressive as Singapore Zoo, but the main reason I chose to visit the zoo is to see a rare animal I rank among my favourites in the animal kingdom — the giant panda!
Chiang Mai Zoo has three of them. But the entrance fees to the zoo are broken up by the individual attractions the place has to offer. The zoo fee costs just ฿100, but it does not include the chance to see the pandas. That’s another ฿100. Also, if you want avail the open air bus, that’s ฿20. So all-in-all, I paid ฿220 (Rs. 325/$7.2/€5) for my entry.
I walked a bit, saw a few animals at the entrance that I’ve seen many time before and then hopped on to the zoo bus to head straight for the pandas.
While young Lin Ping gets her massive play ground, her parents Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui are in a separate air-conditioned enclosure not too far away.
After getting my panda fix, I moved on.
I took the tram car again, and it stopped for a while at the newly opened aquarium.
They have a kids section with a bunch of cute animals and some rather interesting tiny creatures.
Next, I entered a birds enclosure.
After the birds, next up was a large open section entirely for Gibbons.
Also on the way out, I couldn’t help but buy a small souvenir from Chiang Mai zoo. They were selling stuffed toys of the zoo’s main stars, the pandas. I bought a small Lin Ping souvenir for 150 baht.
All in all, I must have spent nearly 4 hours in Chiang Mai zoo. A lot longer than I thought I would spend. I mostly came to see the pandas and ended up seeing pretty much everything the zoo had to showcase.
So is a visit to Chiang Mai zoo worth it? Well, Singapore Zoo didn’t have pandas (they only get them in 2012), and even koalas, when I visited back in September. So yes, this visit was time and money well-spent. At half the price of Singapore Zoo, you still see a lot of animals. Chiang Mai zoo also has animal shows and even a Night Safari. How good those are, I didn’t bother to find out of sheer dis-interest.
I had some time, so I decided to go back to my room and rest a bit.
I lied down for a while — this day wasn’t over yet.
After the unfortunate turn of events for me yesterday, I woke up today feeling a bit warmer inside. Not in a good way, more like having-a-body-temperature kind of way!
I woke up for a late breakfast, which I had at Rux Thai itself, and then went back to the room… to sulk. Hoping things would get better, health-wise and otherwise.
By the time I told myself there was no use sulking all day, I stepped out… at 6pm.
I walked towards Thapae Gate to see if there was anything going on.
I walked a bit further, and things had started to ‘brighten’ up.
The one downside (sometimes) of carrying around a pro-looking camera is people assume you know how to take really good photographs and will do a better job than they can. I have often been asked to take photos of strangers using their point-and-shoot cameras and today was no exception.
Once outside, I asked Tourist Police officer (an American woman) whether there was anything special planned for today. She told me yesterday was the big release of the lanterns in Mae Jo, today there wouldn’t be anything special and tomorrow would be the concluding Grand Parade.
She didn’t come of as confident and ‘in-the-know’. Something I was used to by now.
Here’s part one of the videos I took of the parade:
Here’s part two video of the parade:
More celebrations awaited me inside.
As I walked along, I saw a large crowd gather around someone.
So I decided to take a video:
I tipped him 10 baht and continued down the road.
Curious as to what the possible ‘Indian connection’ could be, I went inside Wat Buppharam.
I got back out to Thapae Road and made my way towards Nawarat bridge.
Stealing what? Money. When the locals pray and release the krathongs, they often place some money as an offering to the river goddess. These shameless people then wait for the krathongs to float their way and then take the money. CNNGo has a good article on these ‘river bandits’.
It’s not just the hundreds of paper lanterns in the sky in front of me. There were hundreds more to my left, right, behind me… everywhere! I kept wondering “How does one truly capture the experience in one frame!”
As I sat on my bed before going to sleep, I reviewed the snaps I had taken today. After yesterday’s disappointment, and how I felt when I woke up today, my mood was definitely more upbeat after I saw my photos.