The Travels of Eric and Lorna

We awoke to a beautiful day. Since it was the day for the famous Chiang Mai Flower Festival , we got a move on and got going pretty early. We walked down to Tha Phae Road, which leads into the main eastern gate into the old city, which I posted a picture of on yesterday's post. This parade was so cool. It was already going on when we got there, but we still saw over two hours of it. It was so much like a parade in the US, and let so unlike one here as well. It was like ones here in that there were marching bands, all playing western songs I recognized, and there were flower floats, local groups. etc. However, it was also unlike one here in that there were no barricades, and we were right up on the parade. When something large, like a float, was coming through, guys with whistles would urge people back. Also, there were, of course, a lot of things you don't get in parades in the US, like all the people in traditional costumes and the guys carrying huge drums (one of my f...