Hi everyone, nice to meet everyone again, I am Tunmeng Travel, this is already the fourth issue of this year.

This period we may meet several times because in the recent times I have travelled a lot.

Today I will take everyone to the northern part. Heading to Chiangrai province once again, continue from the last topic review at http://pantip.com/topic/33140986

Last time, I took you to see the full bloom time of Nang Phaya Sua Krong (Wild Himalayan Cherry) and visit the new attractions of Chiangrai.

Today I will take everyone to explore another breathtaking flower route in Chiangrai and admire the charm of Siao flowers, which are wild white Bauhinias. They are blooming all over the mountain and covering the mountain with bright white color contrast with the blue color of the sky at Phu Chee Fah.

How beautiful is it? Let's see and have a look yourselves.

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SR = Supported the travel by Tourism Authority of Thailand, Chiangrai.

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Thank you everyone for reading this review, and if it not bothers everyone, you can leave a greeting, suggestion and comment message to me or for those who would like to chat, follow my travelling news or participate in the game activities with me, you can follow me at https://www.facebook.com/TummengMagazine

Speaking of festival or season in which wild flowers or mountain flowers beautifully bloom, surely, no one can deny the beauty of Nang Phaya Sua Krong flower (Wild Himalayan Cherry) which flourishing blooms during the winter time. But then again, travelling to have a look at this spectacular flower, we have to confront with the enormous number of people who are also travelling to see the beauty of this flower.

Only a few people know that after Nang Phaya Sua Krong flower (Wild Himalayan Cherry) blooms for approximately 1 month, there will be one kind of wild flower blooms afterwards which is equally beautiful, only just the blooming time is in the off season time.

During middle of February till middle of March at Phu Chee Fah, there will be held the local festival which is already held for many years. This festival is called "Blooming Siao Flower Festival".

This festival was held at Tub Tao village, Tub Tao sub-district, Thoeng district, Chiangrai province. The festival is seemingly kind of celebrating the blooming flower and is also the reunion of various tribes who live on Doi Pha Mon area, Pha Tang, Phu Chee Fah.

After local people greet the massive number of visitors from various provinces who come to travel and explore the beauty of Phu Chee Fah nature.

The Blooming Siao Festiival is a festival to welcome the local people who spread out to live in other parts of country to come back and reunion with their family.

At the festival, there are many activities and performances perform by hill tribe people which include beautifully dressing with tribal dress, many booths selling local things and exhibitions from various organization as well.

the main tribes who live on Doi Pha Mon include Hmong, Mien (Yao), Tai Lue, Mu Soe (Lahu).

Throughout the festival, you can see people who are dressing with the colorful and beautiful tribal dress walking all over the place.

It is kind of the beauty show. Some dresses cost from thousands to ten thousands.

Everyone from children to adults is dressing in their tribal dresses.

The festival period usually coincides with or near the Valentine day.

Why this festival is held during this time? it's because of at the mountain range of Doi Pha Mon which located the main attractions; Phu Chee Fah and Pha Tang, there will be flocked with Siao flower in this period.

White Siao Flower, scientific name: Bauhinia variegate (Karen tribe name: Poe Pae; Hindi name:कचनार; Sanskrit name: कोविदार ; Urdu name: کچنار) is a species of flowing plant in the family Fabaceae, native to South Asia and Southeast Asia, from southern China, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, other common names include Orchid Tree, Camel's foot tree and Mountain-ebony Kachnar (Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu name) or Kachan (Bengali name), In the Punjabi province of Pakistan call this plant as Kolaar کلاڑ which is different from the name in Urdu language.

White Siao Flower, it is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree growing up to 15 meters tall. The leaves are 6-18 centimeters long and broad, rounded, and bilobed at the base and apex. The flowers are conspicuous white with red yellow streaks inside, pleasant scent, 7–12 centimeters diameter and 20-30 centimeters long when blooms, with five petals. The fruit is a pod 10–25 centimeters long.

Or local people, they called Siao Flower which will bloom around middle of February till middle of March.

It is the decorative trees along the path. The bark of a tree contains astringent substance, tannin, used for dyeing fishing net or seine. Its young leaves and pods can be eaten as a foodstuff.

For those who come at the peak time of the blooming flower period, Siao flower will change this mountain area from green to bright white color.

It is pity that such a beautiful flower like this blooms in the summer time when the people do not prefer to travel to the mountain or to the northern part anymore.

However, in the unfortunate, there are still a fortunate, the chance for those who do not like to travel in the crowded period , they can visit and watch the beauty of Siao flower and the nature at Phu Chee Fah and Pha Tang during this time instead.

Thus, for those who would like to watch the beauty of Siao flower, they would have to travel during February-March period.

Driving along the tourism path of Doi Pha Tang and Phu Chee Fah, you will find Siao flower fully blooms alongside of the path.

Alike this time, me and my friend together with a blogger and a photographer travel together to watch the beauty of Siao flower. We start from watching the sunrise at viewpoint no.102 at Doi Pha Tang.

The time I travel is during the end the end of February. Unluckily, although the weather is still cold but there is a little humidity so there is not much sea fog plus there is cloudy that we can hardly see the sun.

Me and my friends are the first group who reach the top of the mountain, therefore, at that time there are only me, three friends of mine and only 1 Korean tourist at the viewpoint.

Shortly following by a young couple, therefore, including us, there are just only 6 people at the view point no.102 which is the great opportunity for us to be imbued with the gorgeous scenic and can freely take pictures of the ambience.

No one blocks our view; we could take photos everywhere not disturbs by anyone.

You could just take time to stare and watch the nature view because there is no one to block the gorgeous view.

or there is no one disturbs you if you just only would like to sit and watch the in front beauty surrounding. This is one of the advantages of travelling during off-season.

After watching the sunrise, we take off from Doi Pha Tang, driving across the mountain for around 25 kilometers to Phu Chee Fah.

Both sides of the path we have encountered, it not just only Siao flower, we also still find the beauty of other things including Ngiu flower from the big Ngiu tree (Cotton Tree) that are on the sideways. Ngiu tree is attracted us to get off the car and take the photos of this beautiful scenery.

Ngiu Tree which is so rare to be found in the present but we are unexpectedly to find it here.

As we all may heard that if we compare the journey to a book, the destination is the book title, thus, the story during the journey may be considered to be the content which can make the book more completed.

We take approximately an hour from Doi Pha Tang to Phu Chee Fah in the late morning.

For those who would like to take photos of Phu Chee Fah before dawn, I suggest that you may find the accommodation in this area for one night and climb up to watch the morning atmosphere in the next day.

However, our group does not have much time, thus, we just take photos of beautiful scenery at the late morning time. Then we continue our journey to Ban Huak and have a meal at Phu Sang waterfall which is only 100 meters away from the roadside. The tides of the waterfall is warm water which is falling to the below cold water stream.

This is our stopover point. On the way, there are food shops such as made to order food shop, Somtom (papaya salad) shop which serve for someone who would like to change the atmosphere.

Maybe if you still have enough energy, you can walk up to see the mouth of the hot spring which is the source of this waterfall, The walkway distance is approximately 700 meters.

Long time ago when I was just a high school student, I have been here before, I likely used to play in the warm waterfall and the stream below.

After takeoff from Phu Sang waterfall, we visit another attraction point which related to the cultural and the way of life of Tai Lue people. It located at Chiang Kum district, Phayao province.

I go to Ban Yai Sang Dao, Tai Lue cultural center which is quite authentic cultural center for Tai Lue tribe.

There are ancient style Tai Lue houses and weaving cotton with Tai Lue pattern.

They plant cotton by themselves for weaving the cotton clothes.

Besides conserving Tai Lue culture, the center also propagate Tai Lue culture to the next generation for knowledge learning and keeping on Tai Lue culture.

In the afternoon, we take a visit to one attraction which is just open for around 2 years, Saen Kham Rak garden.

This is a private yard which plant many kinds of flower and there is also sunflower field here. But unfortunately, we arrive late at that time, the sunflower field just was ploughed and they are beginning to scatter new sunflower seeds and then wait for approximately 60 days, the bright yellow color will fully covers this area again.

However, there are still lots of colorful flowers to watch and there also has coffee shop and steak restaurant serving for the visitors who passing by.

We stop here until the time is almost late evening, I do have to send my friends who come from Bangkok to go travel in other places in Chiangrai.

I hope that everyone who has greeted me will come and visit me again in the next opportunity.

For today, I will end the review of Siao flower festival and travel along the flower path of Chiangrai at this.

If everyone has any question or would like to have more details, for a quick reply, you can have an inquiry at my page

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In the next issue I will take everyone to travel to the sea. Good night and see you again soon.