Chiang Mai: New Year's 2006

Chiang Mai is where we chose to spend New Years Eve. It is in the northwestern part of Thailand and is the second largest city in the country. It has scattered ruins and a moat that surrounds the city center. Most tourists come here to start their trekking. Other than that, there really wasn't much to do. The food was amazing, however, and even less expensive than our previous stops.

From our balcony on New Years Eve we noticed strange orange lights slowly rising in the sky. Later in the night when we went to the main celebration at Tha Phae Gate, we learned that they were white paper lanterns being lit up and sent into the night sky, like little hot air balloons. A constant stream of them floated up and managed to stay lit as far as the eye could see. Seeing dozens of these lanterns in the sky at any given time was truly beautiful. We made it to the Ping River just in time to see the fireworks at midnight. They exploded right over us. We couldn't have been in a better spot. We were glad to have been here for the new year, but looked forward to our next destination. The next day, we caught a bus that took us further north to Pai…