Like other countries we have visited, Thailand celebrates “Children’s Day”(how did the US miss this holiday?!). We wanted to do something fun for the kids, so we looked up activities online and discovered some free kid’s activities at the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek Garden in Chiang Mai (a mouthful, I know). It’s a huge garden complex next to the Night Safari.
Thailand’s Children’s Day is truly a special occasion, and what better way to celebrate than by exploring the beautiful Royal Flora Ratchaphruek Garden? This sprawling garden offers lush landscapes, diverse plant species, and themed displays that are both educational and entertaining for children. As you stroll through the grounds, you’ll be amazed by the carefully manicured gardens and vibrant flower beds, offering a serene escape from the hustle and bustle of city life. It’s an ideal place to let the kids run around and explore nature in all its beauty.
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It was a hot sunny day, so I donned my sunglasses, and off we went! With so much to see and do, having the right eyewear meant I could enjoy the bright day without squinting or worrying about the sun’s harsh glare.
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Ethan is wearing a jacket only to protect his skin!
The kids activities were fairly limited…but amounted to some free bags of junk food, a stage where kids were (maybe) competing in a song competition, and a table of fake “snow” for the kids to build snowmen out of. Cool, weird stuff…but the kids enjoyed it!
Jared couldn’t handle the stage speakers turned up to a deafeningly (Mexican) level, so we opted to ditch the kids activities after 15 minutes and see what else the garden had to offer. We could have done a very long trek to a far end of the gardens, or walked the long path up to the temple. But, no. It was too hot and sunny to see all that we wanted to see and the kids were already sluggish, so we basically just opted to please the kids and take them to a kid’s playground area, instead.
On the way to the playground we passed a pond where we could can rent Swan paddle boats for 15, 30 or 60 minutes at a time. The prices were 40, 70 and 100 baht, respectively. We rented the boat for 15 minutes, which turned out to be plenty long enough. After all, we didn’t all fit in the 2 seater swan very well…Ethan (who is under that life jacket somewhere) had to sit on Jared’s lap while he peddled with his feet, and I found myself balancing precariously in the neck of the swan so Ella could pretend try to peddle, as well.
Royal Flora’s property is immense, and they have an entire section of gardens dedicated to countries around the world (totem poles in Canada’s gardens, etc). I think this fountain was in India’s garden. I definitely could have spent more time looking around…but alas, it was Children’s Day!
So, we found the playground, which had an awesome whale mouth slide that reminded me of my childhood days in Gage Park (Topeka, KS). I loved our whale slide 
The playground was one of the best in Chiang Mai, for sure!
Next to the playground was “Bug World,” a huge solarium/green house dedicated to gardens and bugs. They had bug displays and staff around to show off the bugs of various varieties!
In one section, they even kindly offered you some samplers of the popular street-eat bugs from the area. Would you serve yourself?
This young girl and her father were happily filling up their cups with the free samples!
The bug house has some educational display rooms (mostly in Thai, if I remember correctly) and are definitely worth a visit!
We found some ice cream, and headed out to hit up the Central Plaza Mall, which was also reportedly hosting some kid’s activities. We found it to be that overwhelmingly packed with families for the holiday, and were barely able to find a restaurant with a table for lunch! We let the kids do one free coloring craft, and skedaddled out of there as fast as we could. End of day.
Happy Children’s Day (January 14th in Thailand)!!
Did you try the bamboo warms? they are actually pretty good, and I hate bugs. My Thai friends tell me kids day is the day when everyone loses their eardrums between the airshow and the speaker everywhere, but its still a cool idea. Did you hear about the man in the Chiang Mai airshow last year whose parachute did not work and so died on the runway in front of the children? Flute accident, but scary.
No…I can’t bring myself to trying ANY bugs. Sorry!
We were tempted to go to the airshow, but when I read that traffic takes HOURS to get in and out of it, we opted against it. I DIDN’T hear about that crazy accident last year…how terribly awful!!