Songkran in Northern Thailand

When we arrived in Thailand, we were so happy to see blue sky!  It was burning season in Laos which means that all the crops were being burnt to get ready for the upcoming rainy season. The sky was always hazy, with sometimes still-hot pieces of char falling from the sky.  We stayed our first few days in Chiang Rai where we saw children parading through the streets as it was the last day of school before Songkran (Thai New Year) and the start of their "summer" holidays. 

We visited the "white temple". This stunning temple is an ongoing art project - the artist has plans for a total of 9 buildings to be completed by 2070!  The paintings included images from pop culture - Star Wars, Minions, iPhones and Michael Jackson - I think these were supposed to be symbolic of the distractions that take us away from our spiritual lives. He also had some interesting paintings depicting Bush and Bin Laden destroying the earth together, and also about climate change. 

We arrived in Chiang Mai and stayed just outside the center at a modern AirBNB apartment. We were located in a hip section of the city (Niamennen Road) near the university, right next to a public square and shopping mall. This seemed to be a major destination for Thai's to celebrate Songkran. We watched the revelry build and bought water guns to take part. There were very few falangs (foreigners) around and it was lots of fun. 

Then we moved to the center of the city, a historic section surrounded by brick walls and a moat. This is the center for both culture and tourism - and the Songkran celebrations were crazy!  There was water everywhere - not just water guns but hoses and buckets (usually filled with ice water). We fully took part!

Danny getting doused with Zac looking on in the background:

The vibe on the street was so positive, a lot like Pride in Toronto. You would think that with all the water spraying there would be animosity but people seemed to keep things positive. It was also amazing to see a monk or a group of elders walk right through the chaos with hardly a drop of water on them. People were able to maintain their respect even amongst the revelry. 

After Songkran ended we were finally able to walk around and see the city. We found some amazing restaurants and I became addicted to Khao Soi, a curried noodle soup dish of northern Thailand - hoping I can find this back in Toronto. 

One of our favourite restaurants called Cooking Love that had excellent Khao Soi:

As a diversion and to see the jungle, we went zip lining!  It took some convincing to get Zac and Danny to try it but they both had lots of fun and were glad they did it - as was I!

Unfortunately it got really hot (40C+) and as we left Chiang Mai after 10 days it felt like there was lots of the city that we hadn't yet seen, (we were happy to have a pool and AC) but it was just too hot to walk around for much of the day. We were looking forward to Vietnam where the temperatures would be much more bearable. 

Chiang Mai street musicians:

We visited an optical illusion museum where you can interact with the paintings: