I was in Chiang Mai at the weekend on a photo assignment and took a ride to Bor Sang, about 10 kilometres outside the city. The town is renowned for making umbrellas from bamboo and saa paper. On Saturday and Sunday the annual umbrella festival was taking place. This involves lots of typically Thai fun, music, dance and parades.

A bevy of young beauties from the local school were performing a dance routine on Sunday afternoon and I was made to promise that I would post a few pictures on the website.

There were also demonstrations of the art of umbrella making and painting.

There are dozens of workshops in Bor Sang producing umbrellas for the local and international tourist market.

It was a good opportunity to capture some visually striking images for a book I am working on about Thailand.