Winters are beautiful, cold and white, but without a single flower in sight.
I found myself waking up in Chiang Rai, where Thai people travel to in our cold season to experience something somewhat close to “Winter”. The “wintery” weather here isn’t so cold but cool enough for certain types of flowers—categorised as winter flowers among the Thais—to blossom.
A van picked me up from the Dusit Island Resort and headed straight down to one of the landmarks of Chiang Rai city, “Tung Garden”. This was where the vision of varying vibrant colours struck me, and that vision was real.
Thousands of beautiful flowers surrounded me, welcoming me to the garden of floral rainbows.
It was stupendous.
All Photos above taken with Nokia Lumia 1020
Chiang Rai Flower Festival 2015 opened on 23rd December 2015 and runs until 31 January 2016. It takes up the entire Tung Garden and is opened to the public everyday from 6.00am – 10.00pm (Free Admission).
Special Note
I’d like to thank Vie High Group Company Limited and Chiang Rai Coffee House for sponsoring my trip. My flight with Thai Smile was fantastic, and my stay at the Dusit Island Resort was pleasant.
I went up to Chiang Rai to film a little promo video for the launch of Chiang Rai Coffee House at the flower festival. They source a variety of great quality roasted coffee beans from local plantations, with the aim to help developing the community enterprise. Their website will be up soon and I will be writing a more detailed post on them…so stay tuned!
As for now, if you would like a taste of coffee from Chiang Rai, visit Chiang Rai Coffe House pop-up cafe at the flower festival. You can also purchase some coffee beans back home as gifts—perfect for this time of the year! 🙂
Bee Xoomsai
Bee’s Journey
