I'll be in Bangkok for the Chinese New Year and I'd be grateful for any local knowledge or advice on where would be a good place to have fun over 22 / 23 Jan that includes the New Year celebrations? Of course China Town has to be a strong contender but are there any annual parades or other events that are recommended?

Thanks in advance

Jeeez, another "New Year Party" with all the racket of the firecrackers. What's next.. the Islamic New Year? When can a man get some peace and quiet?

Thailand is the only country i know of in the world that officially celebrates -with gazetted holidays- 3 New Years. Christian new year,Chinese new year jan/feb and Thai new year songhkran. Nothing much happens in Thailand for the first 4 months of the year because everyone is either pissed or away up country.

Not a good time to be here in Bangkok .Everywhere people are banging cymbals and making us much noise as they can in practice for Songkran new year celebration in April. IOf you go to the beach there will be people letting off fire crackers louder than a jet flying low overhead.

Semper, dont worry, Islamic New Year was mid December 2011, or looking ahead, early December 2012.

Semper, dont worry, Islamic New Year was mid December 2011, or looking ahead, early December 2012.

Actually, 14 November 2012

Semper, you know what do then, heat and the kitchen spring to mind! I wonder what our hosts think of the celebrations. It seems that they are a pretty tolerant lot having to put up with the various Christian celebrations. In the meantime is someone actually going to give some advice to SamSip without feeling the need to rip the subject apart? Otherwise I would suggest Thaigers.com for infinitely more sensible information. BFN

Semper you really are a <deleted> aren't you?

Mods - why do let idiots run rough shod over a perfectly reasonalble question?

Thailand is the only country i know of in the world that officially celebrates -with gazetted holidays- 3 New Years. Christian new year,Chinese new year jan/feb and Thai new year songhkran. Nothing much happens in Thailand for the first 4 months of the year because everyone is either pissed or away up country.

Not a good time to be here in Bangkok .Everywhere people are banging cymbals and making us much noise as they can in practice for Songkran new year celebration in April. IOf you go to the beach there will be people letting off fire crackers louder than a jet flying low overhead.

Look at Malaysia - they celebrate 4 New Years - Christian, Chinese, Hindu and Islamic.

Singapore also celebrates 3 New years.

Thailand is the only country i know of in the world that officially celebrates -with gazetted holidays- 3 New Years. Christian new year,Chinese new year jan/feb and Thai new year songhkran. Nothing much happens in Thailand for the first 4 months of the year because everyone is either pissed or away up country.

Not a good time to be here in Bangkok .Everywhere people are banging cymbals and making us much noise as they can in practice for Songkran new year celebration in April. IOf you go to the beach there will be people letting off fire crackers louder than a jet flying low overhead.

Look at Malaysia - they celebrate 4 New Years - Christian, Chinese, Hindu and Islamic.

Singapore also celebrates 3 New years.

Since when is New Year a "christian" celebration?

It's a "western" tradition and has barely anything to do with religion.

Samsip

To my recollection there is no big parade for Chinese new year. Sure you have the dragon dance and such all over town. With the most fancy happening around china town

But apart from that it's mostly lots of food stalls, with the main street in Chinatown closed for a few nights of that week.

There might be some sort of launch of the event during the day - but can't remember if that includes other performances.

Chinatown is an intereting part of town to visit even without the new year celebration.

Be prepared for lotssss of traffic though

Another place in Thailand that seem to have big Chinese new year celebration is the province of Trang. If you decide to head down that way you can combine it with beach visit - although weather conditions these days might not be the best

Have fun

Went to China town last time, it was great. It's on pier 5, well I pretty sure it's pier 5 on the river.

Thanks to MiG16 and benbear for some sensible answers

I'm sure I will have fun and hope that everyone else does as well

I wonder how to say Sawadee pee mai in chinese

I wonder how to say Sawadee pee mai in chinese

Depends on the dialect. In Cantonese, it's Kung Hee Fatt Choy, Sun Leen Fai Lok

I wonder how to say Sawadee pee mai in chinese

I believe in Mandarin it is "xin nian kuai le"

every year tourists ask about this-and mostly they get disappointed, as it s mainly an in-the-house affair. About just as noteworthy as being in London on 25/12. Only as the TAT saw more and more Sino-Malays and Singys etc arrive-unlike the Thai they do have holidays, they decided to put something on, a feat what the local Chinese community in fact had not even thought about. ""all'' over town is hence quite a misnomer, plus that 2 out of 4 of the last years have been cancelled at the last minute, like demo's ro whatever. Tipical Thai-the program will not be announced uintill a day or 2-3 beforehand.

What one can see-in the days preceding, are the rituals the local SinoThai perform. But DO take care and heed; as the Chinese are so very much superstitious, and their beliefs say that those celebrations are also there to predict what will happen in their bisnis the new year of dragon-they rather have those dumbo tourists away, out of fear they spoil anything by making unpteen faux pas. So they hire a few Chinese from China to do the tourist acts. And buy those red T-shirts, but not those with ''we like Yingluck so much- Rich, Beautiful she is our man!-- but those with a drgaon on.