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| Since Thailand is located
in the tropical zone where the land is fertile and plants
grow well, you can find a great variety of beautiful
flowers in this country. Thai people do not only seek
pleasure from growing and viewing them, but also hold
some events to highlight their attractiveness or to
make use of them. |
| Chiang
Mai Flower Festival |
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It is a colourful annual festival
of Chiang Mai, 696 km from Bangkok, with the official
name of the Chiang Mai Festival of Flowers and Ornamental
Plants. It was first held in 1977 at the initiative
of |
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| Mr. Chalo
Thammasiri, then governor of the province, as a way
to increase the income of the local inhabitants through
tourism and to promote the cultivation of flowering
plants as a commodity. |
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One
of the beautiful ladies in a floral
float
procession in Chiang Mai Flower Festival.
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| Chiang
Mai holds this annual festival on the first Friday,
Saturday and Sunday of February when the flowers bloom
at their best. The festival brings two most beautiful
creatures of nature--girls and flowers--together for
people to admire. |
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is a floral float procession, a contest for selecting
the most beautiful float and a beauty contest to select
the Miss Flower Festival of the current year from
among the beauties sent by the various sponsors to
sit on the floral floats. |
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| All
kinds of handicrafts and other native products are
displayed for sale at the site of the show. |
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| Dok Khun Flower
& Khaen Melody Festival |
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| It has long been said that Khon
Kaen, 449 km from Bangkok, is a place of dok khun flowers
(yellow cassia) and khaen melodies (khaen is a reed
mouth organ played in the northeastern region). This
is because Khon Kaen is the centre of northeastern region,
including that of northeastern culture, of which the
khaen is an important part, and dok khun is the flower
of this province. |
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The festival is normally held in April as part of
the local traditional New Year celebrations. During
the period after the harvesting season, farmers have
much free time for entertainment and dok khun are
blooming at their best with strings of these yellow
flowers hanging from the trees, giving a beautiful
decoration to the roads in the province.
There is a big khun tree garden on the west bank of
Kaen Nakhon Marsh where many khun trees are growing.
The event features paying homage to revered Buddha
images and shrines, respectfully pouring water on
elders' hands, offering food to monks, beauty contests,
floral floats and northeastern folk entertainment.
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| Tak
Bat Dok Mai |
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| Tak Bat Dok Mai is
a merit-making festival held in Phra Buddha Bat*, Saraburi
Province, 108 km from Bangkok, yearly on Khao Phansa
Day, i.e. the start of the three-month Rains retreat
or Buddhist Lent, during which Buddhist monks must spend
the nights in their monasteries. |
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| Tak Bat Dok Mai means
making merit by presenting flowers to Buddhist monks.
It originated from a Buddhistic legend about a man named
Malakan in Ratchakhrue Town, who made merit by presenting
jasmines instead of food as usual to the Lord Buddha.
So this is a very old tradition of the |
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Worshippers
presenting "Khao Phansa"
flowers to Buddhist monks as offerings |
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| Buddhists everywhere,
but only those in Phra Buddha Bat have observed it as
a festival. In former times, Phra Buddha Bat people
would go to present food to the monks at the temple
on the early morning of Khao Phansa Day. Later on, they
also went to pick Khao Phansa flowers, which blossom
only in the early Buddhist Lent month, in the mountains
of the province, and offered these flowers with incense
to a procession of monks, who then ascended to the shrine
of the Holy Footprint where they presented the offerings
as tribute. |
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A beauty
queen on a float decorated with
bai-si, a kind of traditional Thai offerings
made of banana leaf |
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| Nowadays, there are
not enough Khao Phansa flowers to meet the demand of
people some of whom come from other parts of Thailand.
So some other kinds of flowers are also used for making
merit on this occasion. The festival also includes a
parade of beautifully carved beeswax candles which are
presented to Phra Buddha Bat Shrine and other temples
in the province after the parade. |
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| Mexican
Sunflower Blooming Season |
| Tourists are welcome
to visit Mae Hong Son in the period from November to
December to see a sea of golden Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia
Diversifolia) blooming over the rolling hills along
Highway 108 after passing Khunyuam. These wild flowers
called Buatong in the northern dialect, look
exactly like sunflowers but are much smaller. |
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| There is a lesser Thung
Buatong in Mae Sariang District, also along Highway
108. The scene of blooming sunflowers is at its most
photogenic at Doi Mae U-kho in Amphoe Khun Yuam. Tours
to admire the natural beauty and to visit hilltribes
will be organized in the blooming season. |
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| Lop
Buri Sunflower Blooming Festival |
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| Lop Buri, especially
Phatthana Nikhom county has vast areas of sunflower
fields which are the substitution for maize plantations
during the dry season. Before harvesting, the golden
fields with the clear blue sky as a background are really
photogenic. Thus, they become a major attraction of
the province. |
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| The festival is
held annually around December when sunflowers are
in full bloom. It features fascinating processions
of floral floats, local entertainment, sun flower
product presentation and a Miss Sunflower blooming
contest. To reach the sunflower fields from Bangkok,
go first to Saraburi, then travel along Saraburi-Lop
Buri Road for 30 km, then turn right onto Highway
no.21 and go for a further 15 km.
*Phra Buddha Bat is the name
of a temple and also of a county where the temple
is located. The name means the Holy Footprint of the
Buddha.
For more information, please
contact your travel agency or TAT, Tel: 0 2250 5500.
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