Bor Sang Umbrella Sankampaeng Hicraft Festival Date : 15 to 17 January 2010 Venue : Bor Sang village, Chiang Mai

To celebrate success of Bor Sang village, a three-day festival is held every January. Streets are illuminated by lanterns, while hundreds of umbrellas are hung from the rafters beams of houses shops. Bs play, while villagers compete to design the year&rsquos most attractive umbrella. Concerts, a food festival beauty contest all compete for the attention of the audience, a mix of both tourists residents, who gather here to celebrate Bor Sang&rsquos innovative hicraft skills.

Bor Sang, on highway 1006 heading east from Chiang Mai, appears to be a typical sleepy rural village, the kind the tour bus speeds by giving you just a fleeting glimpse of its two-storey wooden houses. But hidden in the tiny lanes, villagers have perfected a craft that creates the country&rsquos most famous umbrellas.

For more than 100 years, the village has been associated with the production of umbrellas made from Saa paper derived from mulberry tree bark. According to local history, a monk travelled to neighboring Myanmar, where he came across Saa paper umbrellas that offered protection against both the sun rain.

He returned with the production technique introduced the umbrella to the elders of Bor Sang village, who added their own artistic skills to create a distinctive colorful, but very practical, umbrella. At first it was just a profitable hobby that supplemented the villagers&rsquo earnings from the annual rice crop. However, with time production of the Saa paper umbrellas prospered, prompting villagers to establish a hicraft cooperative in 1941 that now organizes the annual festival.

Using silk cotton, weaved at neighboring Sankampaeng, villagers eventually added a second line of umbrellas decorated with images of the north, its flowers birds, all intricately h-painted.

Today, Bor Sang village exports both Saa-paper silk umbrellas. They are seen at trade shows in a variety of sizes, from giant parasols that offer a shady canopy from the sun, to miniscule variations that adorn popular cocktail drinks.

Throughout the year, tourists visit the village, a short 6 km drive from Chiang Mai, to buy umbrellas study the process skills that go into making a hicraft entirely from natural products. But nothing quite compares with the buzz that permeates the village during this colorful three-day hicraft festival, every January. It is a scene that represents village hospitality charm at its very best.