Saturday 28th November, at 6.09 in the morning, busload after busload with saffron colored monks are entering Nimmanhemin Rd in Chiang Mai.
 
According to the organisers 10.000 monks from different parts of Thailand, Burma and Laos are participating in this form of meritmaking, or Thambon. This is the term for merit making and function like a kind of religious bridge between the layman and the monks, who are the reservoirs of merit that the laymen morally can benefit from. Except from the benefit of meritmaking itself, money and food donations are also given for various benefitting purposes.

I have always been impressed by the large number of monks walking through Mae Hong Son or Luang Prabang in Laos at dawn.
This, event was however of an entirely different magnitude. The sidewalk full of people waiting to pay respect to the monks, many of them dressed in white holding the buddhist symbol of a lotus between their hands. The monks in their turn are taking pictures themselves and the event. They seem to be enjoying themselves while preparing their walk through Nimmanhemin.
 
This amazing event is a kick off for a lot of happenings that will take place in Nimmanhemin area and other areas in December.
December is the month when Nimmanhemin really comes alive with jazz afternoons and “walking streets”. There is also the Royal flower show in Ratchapreuk Gardens starting on the 1:st of December running all through the 10:th of December.

Thenorthernrose.asia will of course make an effort to envision these illustrious events. We warmly welcome you to join us in some of the most colorful events in Chiang mai.

Text and Photo: ^PS

In 1904 the great photographer and traveler J. Antonia made the journey to Chiang Mai. J. Antonia wrote one of the first guidebooks about Siam. This is how he describes the journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in the pre-railway times. 

“Travel in the north of Siam depends greatly upon the season of the year, the amount of water in the rivers etc. There are various places of interest but the difficulties in reaching them are such as to practically preclude their being visited by the ordinary traveler or tourist unless business draws him thither“.  

“When it is explained that a trip to Chiengmai takes as a journey to Europe, and costs even more, it will readily be seen that something more than a desire to view the jungle is necessary to attract the average sight-seer. Fevers, too, are not unknown; there are perils to be encountered in the swirling rapids of the river, which number about 30, and in some places even there are impassable, and tedious portages have to be made. Boat travel to the far north may cost a single individual anything from 15 to 20 ticals per day, whilst a journey on elephant will come to as much or more”.

The railway to Chiang Mai was completed in 1917.

^PS