Every year in January, the village of Bo Sang in Chiang Mai Province holds the Bo Sang Umbrella Festival, one of the most interesting festivals in Thailand, which celebrates the making and selling of gorgeous hand-made, hand-painted paper umbrellas. This year’s celebration was the best I’ve ever seen. From workshops that allowed participants to make their own umbrellas; to demonstrations of making Saa Paper (from the bark of Mulberry trees); to food booths galore, to the miles-long parade that featured marching bands, women from all the surrounding villages dressed in their beautiful traditional phasing outfits, and massive floats decked out in umbrellas and flowers, the event was a kaleidoscopic wonder. Yesterday was the first day of the Bo Sang Umbrella Festival (January 16), but it lasts for two more days throughout this weekend.
