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Mae Jo Lantern Festival - This Saturday


PhotoJohn

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This is the free festival with the beautiful candle-lit procession followed by the massive release of lanterns. 1,000 lanterns released into the sky all at once. It's quite a spectacular event, especially for photographers.

Our Photography Group has considered this as one of our best photo opportunities of the year.

This year we have two air-conditioned vans reserved for our group. We're leaving Chiang Mai at 3:30 in order to arrive there in plenty of time to stake out the best spots to photograph the procession. We'll be returning around 9:30 pm.

We happen to have four open seats for anyone who might wish to join us. It will be a good opportunity to meet some of our members. But better yet, you'll have a comfortable, pre-arranged ride to and from the event. The traffic and parking for this event is always a nightmare if you drive yourself.

If you're interested in joining us, please PM me for all the details.

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I heard this was very nice, but we aren't crazy about crowds. Love your pictures..

If you don't like crowds then give this one a miss. As much as I love the annual event it is one of the most difficult in terms of parking, pushing your way through crowds, finding a place to sit, tolerating hot, melting fuel dripping on, and ruining your clothes, people pushing you, sticking cameras in your face, and the like. Haven't decided if I'll make it this year. I'm afraid with having the flu, and being a little short on patience at the moment, as well as the stress of navigating my kid through the crowds and not losing him, it could become unpleasant.

One extremely unpleasant thing is the teenagers throwing firecrackers into the middle of the crowds entering the event!

Greenside is an amazing photographer IMHO. Looking forward to seeing some from this year.

Edited by elektrified
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It is a great event and one worth going too just one time or if you can get good seats, the time a mate and I went, we left our run a wee bit late and was a nightmare getting in and we hussled and bussled with the locals in between fire crackers and lanterns, when the first wave of lanterns went off it was really spectacular, but getting out was a foot slog and as the crowd was going out another was trying to get in, so there was a bottle neck, that was 18 months or so ago, so things maybe different this time.

It is worth seeing really live and the Thai people were very gracious to us and so many family groups offered my mate and I to join them in releasing lanterns

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It is a great event and one worth going too just one time or if you can get good seats, the time a mate and I went, we left our run a wee bit late and was a nightmare getting in and we hussled and bussled with the locals in between fire crackers and lanterns, when the first wave of lanterns went off it was really spectacular, but getting out was a foot slog and as the crowd was going out another was trying to get in, so there was a bottle neck, that was 18 months or so ago, so things maybe different this time.

It is worth seeing really live and the Thai people were very gracious to us and so many family groups offered my mate and I to join them in releasing lanterns

How could it be 18 months ago? It's an annual event every November.

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Is this an appropriate place to take a 4 yrs old. All this talk about hot dripping wax and firecrackers is beginning to worry.

Maybe watching from a safe distance rather than immersing with the crowd.

The most dangerous part is upon entering and making the trek to the meditation center. Teenagers just chuck firecrackers into the crowds of people. 3 or 4 years ago I wore a nice shirt. I think I paid about 50 Euros for it. I felt something hot on my back and some people behind me began whacking me with their jackets or something. My shirt was on fire from the fuel that drips down on people as the khom loy go into the sky. I had a good size burn on my back for about 2-3 weeks afterwards. The European shirt was destroyed obviously.

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