The story
Songkran Chiang Mai in Chiang Mai
Songkran in Chiang Mai centers on the old city's historic moat and Tha Phae Gate, where locals and visitors line up to scoop water from the moat itself for a days-long water fight. Known regionally as Pi Mai Muang, the northern Lanna new year, it combines temple merit-making with the country's most concentrated moat-side water celebration.
Chiang Mai celebrates Songkran with a geography unlike anywhere else in Thailand: the rectangular moat that has encircled the old Lanna capital since the 13th century becomes the water fight's literal water source, with crowds lining its banks, sitting on its walls, and wading along its edges for three or more days each mid-April.