Chiang Mai centers around tourism all year, but it's main two draws are it's Lantern Festival in November and Flower Festival in February. From what we could tell we weren't being charged any surge pricing for high-season, but we did notice and unusual amount of traffic and fighting through crowds this weekend.
Opening ceremonies began on Friday evening, followed by the Miss Chiang Mai Flower Festival Beauty Pageant and the Miss International Chiang Mai Flower Festival Beaty Pageant competitions. YESSSsss.
We head towards Nong Buak Haad Park where we're told the main action is. The streets are lined with vendors (more than usual) that sell things you’d find at a county fair: questionable electronics, bracelets with your name on it, cowboy hats, etc.
Fake Poo "Hand Made"
There are a bunch of staged flower power photo opportunities, yeeee! I make Ian wait in line with me to take this pic:
We find some vague information about the pageant being at 7PM at the park stage but we get there and see a college (high school) having their big orchestra performance. No one mentions the beauty pageant and they don’t look like dance moms in the crowd. Damn it, this was one of things I was looking forward to! We search for another place the pageant could be held.
There are pop up booths and exhibitions to educate the public about the flowers of Thailand. There are competitions for best orchids, crown of thorns, potted flowers and so on. We return to those things later, for now we're on a mission to see the pageant. I'm ever-trying to catch up to Ian’s bobbing white head over the crowd. We ask anyone we can where the pageant is being held and no one knows. I decide we head to Tha Pae Gate on another corner of the city, acting off of a hunch that there would be another stage there.
It must have been an open competition and I BLEW IT for not signing up. First of all, I'm 5'3 and a size 8, and would have been one of the skinnier and taller girls of the group. Secondly, I've learned a thing or two from Honey Boo Boo about stage presence, and these chodes had none.
The talent portion was a train wreck. I could have farted in my hand and put up a better show. Some highlights: girl singing Pocahontas's "Colors of the Wind" and getting her mic cut off, a contestant trying to kick a soccer ball in the air to herself but in the long Thai pageant skirt, and this:
Ohh I have a high tolerance for awkward but this took the cake. The couple hosting the pageant had to interpret everything and it was obvious they were just mocking the contestants. About 80 percent of the participants were American, adding to the cringe.
It came down to the top four- two from America, one from South Korea(“Careeerrrr”, as the female host styled it), and one from Japan. This mix represented all the contestants’ countries except for one Canadian, who had a painful talent portion playing an acoustic guitar in the traditional long skirt with no stool to sit on. She literally couldn’t get a grip.
The talent portion was a train wreck. I could have farted in my hand and put up a better show. Some highlights: girl singing Pocahontas's "Colors of the Wind" and getting her mic cut off, a contestant trying to kick a soccer ball in the air to herself but in the long Thai pageant skirt, and this:
It came down to the top four- two from America, one from South Korea(“Careeerrrr”, as the female host styled it), and one from Japan. This mix represented all the contestants’ countries except for one Canadian, who had a painful talent portion playing an acoustic guitar in the traditional long skirt with no stool to sit on. She literally couldn’t get a grip.
(Interestingly enough, the top four contestants were also the prettiest.)
The question portion was useless, as many of the contestants didn’t speak Thai and some didn’t speak Thai or English (the Japanese girl) so the host had to mime the question. The one who was crowned and the runner-up contestants had these toughies: “How do you like the International Beauty Pageant Competition, and are we doing a good job?” And “If you win tonight, who will you call first?” (Answers: "Good, this is so beautiful!" and “My mom.”)
It came down to the one girl who had any sort of talent at all- some chick from USA who was a circus performer and did her hula-hoop dance that was surely choreographed for Burning Man.
We wake up at 7:30AM on Saturday for the Flower Festival Parade. We walk to the starting point at 8AM, you know, the time it's supposed to start. (You may start seeing themes in these blog posts, like traveling to other towns SUCK, lack of information and misinformation is EVERYWHERE, and parades are never on time.) We wait about 45 minutes and see that it's getting a little more crowded around us, so we move closer to the middle of the route where no one is.
We find a nice bench and park it there. At 9:30AM the road still isn't closed off and we're just sitting by a highway. Ugh. 9:45, an hour and forty-five minutes after it should have started, we see the beginning of the parade!
More tourists started trickling to the road. So many Chinese tourists.
Similar to the parade in Bangkok, assholes would just run into the road and take pictures with the performers. People just climbed on the nice cars or floats to take the perfect selfie. We watched again and again as this group of ladies held up every single float to take pics. There were five minute gaps between each float or band or performance. It really annoyed me knowing that this is why the parade was taking forever.
The question portion was useless, as many of the contestants didn’t speak Thai and some didn’t speak Thai or English (the Japanese girl) so the host had to mime the question. The one who was crowned and the runner-up contestants had these toughies: “How do you like the International Beauty Pageant Competition, and are we doing a good job?” And “If you win tonight, who will you call first?” (Answers: "Good, this is so beautiful!" and “My mom.”)
It came down to the one girl who had any sort of talent at all- some chick from USA who was a circus performer and did her hula-hoop dance that was surely choreographed for Burning Man.
~~~
Other than the beauty pageant I was really looking forward to seeing the parade. From what we had heard, it was supposed to be like the Rose Bowl Parade with marching bands and flower floats.We wake up at 7:30AM on Saturday for the Flower Festival Parade. We walk to the starting point at 8AM, you know, the time it's supposed to start. (You may start seeing themes in these blog posts, like traveling to other towns SUCK, lack of information and misinformation is EVERYWHERE, and parades are never on time.) We wait about 45 minutes and see that it's getting a little more crowded around us, so we move closer to the middle of the route where no one is.
We find a nice bench and park it there. At 9:30AM the road still isn't closed off and we're just sitting by a highway. Ugh. 9:45, an hour and forty-five minutes after it should have started, we see the beginning of the parade!
There was literally no one lining the street where we were when the parade started. A group of 15 Chinese people are on the opposite side of the road from us. When they see the parade start, they cross the road and stand right in front of our bench. There isn't a soul 30 feet to the left or right of us. I couldn't believe it, and I didn't think you would either, so I ran across the road and took a pic:
Similar to the parade in Bangkok, assholes would just run into the road and take pictures with the performers. People just climbed on the nice cars or floats to take the perfect selfie. We watched again and again as this group of ladies held up every single float to take pics. There were five minute gaps between each float or band or performance. It really annoyed me knowing that this is why the parade was taking forever.
The floats that were covered in flowers looked very nice and very similar. They spelled Brunei wrong in flowers:
There were knife-wielding tots and teenagers marching along in different traditional Thai outfits. A bunch of them were also bored with the length of the parade... I could tell by the way their heads were buried in their cellphones. The bands were OK, just a bunch of high schoolers playing La Bamba and stuff. A school had Chiang Mai Flower Festival 2014 shirts on. How 2000-late.
We watched the parade for almost two hours before leaving. I am a parade lover but an hour is enough.
We watched the parade for almost two hours before leaving. I am a parade lover but an hour is enough.
On Sunday I went back to the Flower Festival while Ian got a haircut. Here I am hanging out with the King and Queen (man did Ian miss out!):
Misc pics from the weekend:
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