New Year Celebrants Visiting Popular Places Across Thailand

CHIANG MAI (NORTHERN THAILAND), December 30 (TNA) - Celebrants of the New Year’s long holidays continue visiting popular tourist destinations in Thailand while food vendors and souvenir traders are doing brisk businesses on Monday. A large number of holidaymakers and foreign tourists are seen walking over the Naga (snake) 300 staircases leading to the renowned Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple which is more than six centuries old in the northern capital of Chiang Mai on belief that they would receive blessings for the new year. Traffic in the area is undoubtedly very heavy. It is expected that about 50,000 travellers would visit the popular temple which is situated atop Doi Suthep daily, helping food and souvenir traders to do good businesses during the festival. Many holidaymakers are also seen at the Huay Nam Dang National Park in the popular Pai district of Mae Hong Son province. Visitors could appreciate the beauty of the scenery and simultaneously view sea of fog before dawn amid low temperature of around 7 degrees Celsius. Also, a large number of holidaymakers are seen travelling to a botanical garden in Phitsanulok’s Ban Rom Klao. They could see the beautiful sea of fog and the daily life of Hmong hilltribe people amid cool weather of about 10 degrees Celsius. In the country’s Northeast, many devout Buddhists are seen visiting and paid worships to the much revered Pagoda of Phra Thai Phanom in Nakhon Phanom province bordering Laos. Traders were busy as many Thai and Laotian buyers strolled and shopped around Tha Uthen and That Phanom districts while they could admire the beauty of the Mekong River at the same time. General atmosphere in the eastern province of Chanthaburi is also active even though many Cambodian workers have returned home to celebrate the New Year festival with their family members and friends. Most offices which hired the workers are expected to reopen next Saturday. In the southern province of Satun, European, Chinese and Malaysian tourists boarded luxurious boats at Pak Bara deep-sea port in La-ngu district which would take them to view or rest on islands in the Andaman Sea. Extra boats have to be prepared to cater the large number of tourists while it is estimated not less than 500 million baht would change hands during the current long holidays. (TNA)