31/01/2024
The Flower Festival Grounds at Suan Buak Haad Public Park
The main location of the 2024 Flower Festival exhibition is Suan Buak Haad Public Park (also Nong Buak Haad). It is easy to find at the southwest corner of the old city, inside the moat. Normally, you will find it a lovely little park with paths and a bridge crossing a pond that is transformed during the festival. It changes into a tapestry of floral and agricultural beauty, a true explosion of color combinations featuring traditional and experimental arrangements and decors. February is the end of the cool season and a blooming period for many of the local breeds, including many locally grown kinds of orchids. So, it’s not just at the festival grounds that you will experience the festival; many residents and shopkeepers in the city join in by putting flower displays in front of their houses and stores.
During the festival, judges visit all the displays and ultimately pick winners in all the different categories. Meanwhile, the street next to the park is closed off, and vendors sell flowers, plants, seeds, and flower bulbs.
The park is open from 9 am to midnight throughout the three days of the festival.
The Chiang Mai Flower Festival Parade
The main event of the festival is its street parade. The parade takes place on Saturday, the 3rd of February 2024, and starts off around 9 am. It is quite a slow procession, with the parade regularly pausing. So make sure you get a good spot around 10 am at the city moat, and you will see it all. The parade consists of around 25 flower floats, beautifully decorated with thousands of flowers, petals, and plants. These are alternated with a wide variety of marching bands, traditional dancers, and performers, including schoolchildren. Many of the floats feature Buddhist and typical Chiang Mai themes. You will, for example, not be able to miss the most fantastically colorful elephant idols you have ever seen. All the floats compete in their own yearly competition.
The Parade Route
At the start, the flower float parade lines up on Charoen Muang Road, from the railway station all the way to Nawarat Bridge. After it starts, the parade then moves over the bridge towards the old city, up Tha Phae Road. It turns left along the moat when it reaches the ancient city wall at Tha Phae Gate. The parade then follows the road all the way to the festival grounds at Suan Buak Haad Public Park. So, if you happen to miss the parade, you can still go and admire the floats there after the parade is finished.
