We’ve decided to visit the Royal Flora Exposition this afternoon. It’s the International Horticultural Expo held every 5 years here in Chiang Mai. It is a huge display of gardens, flowers, plants, crops and just about everything you can think of with regard to horticulture. Spanning 200 acres at the Royal Park Rajapruek, the expo focuses what they call the “Greenitude” – reducing global warming and improving quality of life. It runs from December through March and has tons of competitions and activities throughout the duration.
We’ve planned to go over in the late afternoon to avoid the midday heat – and to catch a glimpse of the light displays at night – which are supposed to be quite nice. The only challenge is the information on how to get there is a little sketchy. The park is about 30 km outside the city – so a tuk tuk would be too much. Ed has searched and has found there are free shuttle buses from the railway station – but that’s all we know. So – we decide to take our chances and head over to the railway station around 3ish and figure it out.
This is why we won’t ever do the Amazing Race! Tuk tuk to the railway station – fine no problem – 80 b. Get to the station – hmmmm….no signs or anything. Ask the information desk – yes the bus is in front of the station, a yellow bus. Okaaaayyyyy. In front of the station – at least the car park entrance is nothing but a local street. No buses of any sort. Lots of Song Tau, but nothing resembling a bus. A huge open backed industrial looking yellow thing (think International Harvester truck turned into a Song Tau) pulls up with what looks like workers on the back….nah…that’s not it.
After about 15 minutes of mulling about, we spy a large orangey-yellow looking bus pulling out of a lot way up at the end of the road – across the big main highway street. We walk up there – and aha! There is the depot. Would exactly call it a yellow bus..but whatever – we’ve found it. The guard tells us to sit, the bus will leave in 30 minutes. Bummer. But in actuality, the bus pulls up and leaves in only 5 minutes, we’re not complaining.
It’s a nice bus too! Air conditioning and everything. Only takes 25 minutes on the ring roads to get to the Park, 
once there we scope out where the buses leave from, and which one to take (there is another “yellow” bus that goes to City Hall and we don’t want to get confused), then scope out the food court where we’ll be eating. After that it’s on into the expo.
This place is amazing - there is a road that snakes all the way through the exhibits, and a shuttle if you don’t want to walk all the way. The first section has all the corporate sponsored displays – just about every company is represented here – obviously the agricultural companies, but also Coke, Air Asia, Bangkok Air, Toyota and the like.
And of course the King – most all the displays pay 
homage to the King and the Royal Family. The expo is being held in honor of his 84th birthday – plus he’s done so many things to help the country when it comes to agriculture and environment, that it seems like a natural fit, even if it weren’t the norm here to revere the King
There are animals, plants of all types, giant insects (yeah, well, horticulture, you know), a whole bamboo village to represent sustainability, and just an amazing array of different things to look at.
Then of course there is the Royal Pavilion sitting at the end of the Royal Path and Imagination Light Garden. It’s just beautiful with all the flowers and statues surrounding it.
We wander around for a couple of hours, just looking at everything and taking in the beauty.
And the bizarre….
Don’t ask? There were tons of these odd statues in the lotus pond area – these appear to be American football representations, the others seem to be different nationalities as well but none quite as odd as these! Except for the one we thought might possibly be Hitler…. :)
It’s getting toward dark, so we start to head back to the food court outside the expo. The light shows and parades begin at 7 and something happens every half an hour until after 8:00. We hate to miss them, but the sketchy info we had on the buses said that they get crazy at the end of the evening – and sometimes you have to stand the whole way back. Plus that would put us back pretty late into Chiang Mai, so we made the executive decision to vamoose before the madness begins. And you can already see it happening, it’s 6:15 and the crowds are already positioning themselves around the lake where the laser display will be held. Not! We’re out of here!
Fortunately it was dark enough that we got the light garden display. Really, totally cool and beautiful in the twilight.
See the light garden video links below:
Hitting the food court – we sign language our way to 2 pieces of fried chicken (no rice – that was the sign language thing) and a bag full of sausages. Yum!
Then back on the bus, back to the railway station and back to town in a tuk tuk. Since it’s early, we headed into town to Tiger Kingdom In Town for a night cap and a couple of great bands – the country band as usual (Thai country!!) videos here...
….and a great 80s/90s rock band. Fun on the sidewalk (that’s our normal seating) – oh and a last rose from Chiang Mai!
Tuk tuk back to the condo. Sigh….tomorrow we pack (ick) and Wednesday it is off to Saigon (for more crazy madness)!
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