People flooded the streets. Voices were raised. The crowd was at fever pitch... That's when the explosions stared.

We took a deep breath and entered the fray .

If this is how Chiang Mai celebrates its Lights festival*, I'd hate to see it riot! Seriously, closest to a war zone I have ever come!! Saying that, there were pockets of tranquility. What struck me the most was the juxtaposition between the calm elegance of vast numbers of paper lanterns being released into the night sky and the utter havoc reeked by rockets and fire-crackers.

I'm not exaggerating for literary effect. We watched a little old man acting like a big kid: launching bottle rockets off a bridge by swinging them around, just as an over enthusiastic pitcher might throw a baseball, or as if he were competing in the hammer. Copycat tourists: sending rockets soaring into the crowd, into the traffic, one even exploding underneath a car. And, my favourite: a bunch of youths, deafening anyone in a 50-meter radius by throwing grenade-like fireworks into the river, before legging it from the scene of the 'crime'.

It was such an assault to the senses that we periodically had to retreat back to the safe-haven of those lighting lanterns.

That being said, nowhere was really safe. Even while standing mesmerised by the heavens, we were rudely brought back to the chaos at street level when one sky lantern started raining firecrackers into the crowd!

*Unlike most party-goers, we did not come to Chiang Mai for the festival. We had no idea that we were hitting the city at the busiest (ie absolutely no accommodation) and most expensive (... At least not in our price range) time of year. If we had known, well....