Yee Ping floating lantern festival in Chiang Mai (Thailand)

This past year I went to Chiang Mai, having found a cheap flight there and back (about $600 total).  Once I started planning my trip there, I found out that the Yee Ping festival was happening while I was there, so suddenly trips to Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos were scrapped for staying in town to see the holiday celebrations.

it can be difficult to get tickets to either of the main events, so if you are going, try to get tickets as soon as they are released.  I signed up to get tickets to one of the parties, but after waiting a while, they sent my money back saying they were out of tickets.    I then lucked out as a woman in one of the travel groups I’m in had an extra ticket so I bought it from her.  The moral of the story: buy tickets early if you want to go.

To get out to the site, you meet up with vans/buses at Prasertland which is a closed venue on the NW side of town.  Everyone seems to know where it is although it closed years ago.  It has a big (unused) parking lot, so it’s perfect. Once you get there, find the line for the ticket you have (there are 3 levels: VIP, group 2, and group 3).  Once you sign in, you will be given a bracelet in the color for your group, then taken to one of the many vans in the lot, which take you to the celebration area, which is a fair distance away.

When you are dropped off, there will be lines of food vendors where you can get many of the local foods.  It’s pretty expensive though so it is best if you brought your own.   If you continue down the path you’ll see the seating areas for the 3 groups – each area is roped off and well labeled so it’s easy to find your assigned seat.  Each person has a chair and the lantern and floating light are at your seat ready for you.  The large stage is at the front.

If you continue further down the path across a “street” the river is straight ahead for the floating lantern releases, and off to the left are some hot springs, and tables and chairs where you can relax until the entertainment starts.

The bathroom situation is not very good.  There were 4 stalls for women, 3 or 4 stalls for men, plus a large urinal area for men.  This seemed quite unfair as the women’s line was really long and men could just walk in.  They should have made the men’s stalls to be men or women or something.

The entertainment is great, including flame throwers and dancing and all sorts of different acts.  During that musical and dance performances, it will get dark and you can go down to the river to release your floating candle. (Video of that on my youtube channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meR57jXJJq8 )

I have also put a video of some drum performers in the show on my YouTube channel

  Finally, they will announce that it’s time to get your floating lantern ready.  Be ready to start immediately, as you want to be able to release when they say, and they seem to be pretty optimistic with the timing, so a lot of people in my area didn’t get theirs released at the same time.