Umbrella Showroom in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Just about two weeks ago, my husband Paul, my youngest daughter Tammy, my mother and I took a trip to the northern part of Thailand.   We stopped at this umbrella showroom in Chiang Mai as planned, as we felt my mother would enjoy visiting this place (we ourselves had already been there some time ago).  I wasn't thinking about blogging about this visit at all until I saw these pretty pictures.  Other pictures were put up on facebook (not that those were not pretty..).


Mom at the entrance of the showroom, in front of a trishaw display....

At the showroom, you can see the procedure for making these handmade umbrellas right from scratch.


Bamboo pieces are split...

 holes are drilled into some pieces...

pieces are strung together...

strings are attached....

 lots of gluing of the paper sheets to the umbrella frames...

They are then hand-painted.

Paper fans are also made in this showroom...

See the large decorative fans on either side of the huge umbrella? (actually, see the two fans in front of it? heh heh)

I loved the whole colourful experience!

Let me say that again...I loved the whole colourful experience!
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The above umbrellas were only about 8inches in diameter.


The novelty of this place is that you can even have your genes, tee-shirt, mobile phone, camera pouch and what-have-you, handpainted on the spot with a design you choose from their sample board.  I had my mobile phone painted with a butterfly design.  It had a little glitter added on as well.  Does it last?  Well, in the two weeks we've been back, it hasn't chipped off at all (and I don't exactly treat my phone very gently)...This design cost me 50baht, or 5 ringgit, or about US$1.50.

First some base paint of some kind was painted on...(that would be like primer for furniture, and foundation for make-up I guess)...

Seriously guys, if you ever go to such places, do tell us about them.  It's just a matter of taking some photos (all these photos were taken by my husband or daughter so, really, it doesn't take a professional camera man to take decent photos!), and telling us about it is really like writing an essay.  You don't have to use bombastic words.. oh wait.. bombastic is a bombastic word...you don't have to use fancy words to tell us about your experience. And there aren't any teachers to mark your essay (Tony Willis and Sarah Benedict - if you're reading this, yes, I deliberately spelt 'jeans' as 'genes' up there, so you can point it out to me...lalaaala laaa)

By writing about your experiences, we get to share in them, as we don't all get a chance to go to those places...(yes, I'm talking to you Warren Phipps and Matthias van Middendorp :)

If you ever do go to Chiang Mai (not to be confused with Chiang Rai which is a different town), ask for the Umbrella Making Centre in "Bor Sung".  Lots of shopping along those streets, too (seriously, why didn't I ever think of becoming a tour guide?

If you want to read about a hotspring, waterfall, bird park, and I-city trip, and our visit to New Zealand and Botswana, do look up the 'travels' section in this blog (you can see the categories on the right side of the page).  If you have found this blog post interesting, do leave a comment or question at the bottom of this post. I usually try to reply all comments within a day or two.

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