Yi Peng lantern festival

After hearing that the yearly Chiang Mai festival of Yi Peng was happening the day I was meant to head north, I rearranged my plans immediately. It's a festival I'd heard of before my trip but knew very little about it.

The exact date isn't announced until only a week or two before and there are two versions of the festival: a free one for locals (in their thousands) held at a university just out of town and an expensive ticketed event held a couple of weeks later. Today was the former.

It was a 30 minute drive to the university and then it took another 15 minutes to find the festival as there were no signs. At one point I was leading about 25 other motorbikes who were also a bit lost. The blind leading the blind.

We arrived just before 4pm and made our way passed hundreds of stalls, mainly selling food and lanterns (which you weren't allowed to take in to the arena, you had to buy the certified eco-friendly ones inside). We bought our official lanterns, reserved our spot and waited in the searing heat until the Buddhist ceremony began at 6pm.

It wasn't until nearly 8pm that the fire started, as there was quite a lot of chanting and praying to get through. It was totally worth the wait though. There were 3 launches, each better than the last. A vast galaxy of lanterns was drifting off in to the night's sky.