Planning your trip to co-incide with any of these is recommended, but there are invariably minor festivals happening all the time which you are likely to chance upon. Bangkok is particularly active in organising all sorts of trade fairs, cultural shows, film and drama festivals and conferences, advertised in local media and detailed in our section on Bangkok. January Festivals
New Years Eve/Day: is celebrated across Thailand, even though it is a Western import, and usually involves all night parties, fireworks and lots of food and drink. Tourist areas are particularly festive and well organised for mass celebration. Chinese New Year: is celebrated across the country by the ethnic-Chinese descendents, involving dragon trains through the suburbs, firecrackers, gift exchanges between business associates and family, and colourful festivals centred on the city pillar. March Festivals
Bangkok International Jewellery Fair: attracts the hi-so and shoppers from around the world to several Bangkok hotels that showcase impressive displays and items in gold, silver and local gems. May Festivals
Coronation Day: is popular among the Thai, with their highly respected monarch having reach the auspicious 60 years of rule, creating an astonishing outpouring of joy that is a sight to see at the Sunam Luang ground outside the Grand Palace. Visakha Puja Day: is a Buddhist holiday commemorating the Lord Buddha’s birth date. Witnessing pious Thais making merit by visiting temples and marching clockwise around chedis is a special treat. Yasothon Rocket Festival: is another intriguing rural festival held in Isarn where hundreds of home-made rockets are fired to becon the rains. Some are impressive others down-right dangerous! July Festivals
Khao Phan Sa: is a low-key festival associated with the time when Thais traditionally go on meditations retreats for Buddhist lent. Typically young men enter the monkshood as novices and if you are lucky you will catch a parade of these shaven headed, lotus clasping boys on their way to make merit. September Festivals
International Swan Boat Races: take place on the Chao Praya river in Bangkok with a magnificent display of tradition Thai long-tail boats, along with their ceremonial finial and detailed naga heads. Elephant Polo Tournament: is a relatively new but well supported, somewhat unusual and pedantic, tournament involving wealthy ex-pats, polo sticks and elephants. It was recently moved from Hua Hin to Chiang Saen in the North, diminishing its popularity. November Festivals
Loi Krathong: is one of the most important annual ceremonies in which sins of the past year are washed away by floating decorative ‘kratongs’ down the river, and the sight of thousands of candle-light floaters, along with illuminated rice paper balloons drifting in the night sky, is enchanting. December Festivals
King’s Birthday: is also Fathers’ Day and an extraordinary outpouring of joy and respect to the reigning monarch King Bhumibol (Rama IX) who is much loved by all Thais. 2006 marked 60 years of his accession to the throne and life-sized posters and billboards all over the country pay tribute to him during this period. | 
