Bo Sang Umbrella Festival

We had heard that there is a yearly Umbrella Festival in Bo Sang, a town just 15 minutes outside of Chiang Mai. This festival takes place the 3rd weekend of January. Information online is terribly vague, but we took our chances and packed up the kids to see if we could track down the festival.

Bo Sang is a town that is known for its craft of traditional umbrellas. No Made-in-China umbrellas here!  We first rode into town and spotted a workshop that allows customers to wander and see the craft being done.

The kids were definitely intrigued!

Ella, meanwhile, begged and begged to take one home (yeah right—like that’s going to fit in our backpacks!)

This poster board explained the process of taking the bark of the Sa tree, boiling it, cleaning it, and beating it into a paper that could be used for their umbrellas. They wrote:

“Sa paper is made from the bark of the mulberry tree (sa tree). Initially the bark is soaked in clean water for about 24 hours, then it is boiled with several kinds of ashes for about 3-4 hours and rinsed clean with water. Next, the material is beaten with mallets until tender and afterwards the fibers are put into a water filled tank and stirred with a paddle until the fibers are suspended in the water. The fibers are then sifted with a screen and dried in the sun for about 20 minutes. Once dried, sheets of paper are formed which can be peeled off easily. This paper is used in a double layer to cover the umbrella frame which will later be painted.”

Pretty cool, huh?!

We didn’t see any festival at this workshop, but after asking us they pointed us towards the center of town. Sure enough, an umbrella-covered archway greeted us (photo later) and there was no missing this festival!

Every store had beautiful umbrellas hanging above their entry. I admired this one with natural flowers dried in the paper!

Since we had arrived fairly early in the evening, there wasn’t much going on, yet.

They had a local competition for the best umbrella display, so the girls had fun posing at a few places!

We thought there would be an organized parade…but it was more like a hodge-podge of floats that came by sporadically every 5-15 minutes. They closed down the street, but nothing consistent ever came to pass while we were there for several hours.

My favorite photo…

Women were dressed up in matching clothes for perhaps a more organized parade later in the evening?  I wasn’t sure…

We enjoyed young students playing a drum…more of a half-dance, half-drumming experience!

There were many street food vendors, and random knick-knacks to be purchased.

All in all, it was worth the trek. It was great to visit the workshop first, so we could learn about the process. Then…there was plenty to look at and munch on as we wandered the streets. Nothing incredibly overwhelming…just a nice evening out!

The earliest you probably want to show up to this Festival is at 4pm (we attended on Friday), and likely things don’t pick up until quite a bit later. If you arrive early, you can find motorbike parking smack in the middle of town for $1 or less.  At night the umbrellas are all illuminated and it makes quite a feast for the eyes!

They have English-language Festival schedules that can be picked up at their information booth (I tried to keep a copy of to share with future festival-goers here…but sadly…it has vanished!), and they make announcements over a loud speaker in English and Thai.

Enjoy this bit of local Thai culture! You will be one of very few tourists, if you attend!