Protect what cannot get wet
Waterproof pouch for the phone, dry bag for the camera, sandals not sneakers. Everything else is negotiable and will be negotiated for you.
Destinations / Yunnan / News / Festival calendar
The water festival.
For three days each April, the Dai south turns water into a language: the new year arrives and everyone — visitors absolutely included — gets soaked in the friendliest ambush in China. Here is how the calendar and the days actually run.
Explore the guide ↓Xishuangbanna · the Dai south
- The festival
- The Dai new year
- The core dates
- 13 – 15 April
- The dress code
- Everyone gets wet
- The alternative
- Dehong, mid-April
Mid-April, every year.
The Dai new year follows its own calendar and lands in mid-April; Jinghong's official program centres on 13–15 April, with the dragon-boat races on the Lancang, the sand-mound building at the riverside temples, the fair nights and — the part everyone remembers — the public splashing that empties every bucket, basin and water pistol in the prefecture onto everyone in range.
Counties set their own emphases: Menghai and Mengla run village-centred celebrations a little apart from the city program, and Dehong prefecture to the west (Ruili, Mangshi) keeps a parallel festival with far fewer visitors. Dates are announced each spring; we confirm the county calendar before booking anything around it.
Joining in well.
Three days, two rules.
Respect the order of the days
Mornings are for the temple ceremonies and the races — watch first, splash after. Elders in particular may prefer a blessing with green branches to a bucket; follow their lead.
Book months ahead
Jinghong sells out for the festival week — hotels price at three or four times normal and the good ones go first. Enquire early; we hold festival-week allocations for confirmed journeys.
Festival plus forest.
Our tea-and-Mekong journey can be re-timed to finish in Jinghong for the festival, adding the fair nights and the races to the tea mountains — the best of both halves of the south. The elephants keep their own schedule regardless: Wild Elephant Valley mornings run through the festival week as normal.
To be confirmed each year: the official county programs and any access notes for the temple quarters. We check in March and say so plainly on the itinerary.