Loy Krathong

With the "th" pronounced as a "t", Loy Krathong is a once yearly Thai celebration, held on the full moon in November. This year, that is tonight but the celebration extends this whole weekend with parades tonight and tomorrow (Sunday) and general madness all 3 days. Loy means "float" and Krathong means "banana leaf", which describes the customary event of floating a frisbee-sized banana leaf boat down the river with prayers for forgiveness and a clean start. I don't think this is their new year, but the sentiment is the same.

The other traditional thing to do is to set of an "air balloon" into the sky, which looks like an oversized paper lantern. The sky is filled with them, tiny specs of orange light glowing near and far as they float along until their flame is extinguished, they meet a barrier such as a tree, or they catch themselves on fire. These lanterns are very thin paper cylinders that vary in size but are typically about the size of an oil drum. They are all enclosed except for the bottom which is open and has wire holding a candle in the center of the lantern. When you light the candle, hot air fills the paper and makes the whole thing float like a balloon. They are actually very beautiful.

Now, the other thing about this festival, which I found to me a bit more...noticeable...is the abundance of beer and fireworks. Honestly, it's like a war zone. No photos, video, or words can capture the madness. We walked the main drag last night with Kane's friend and his girlfriend; it was nice to have guides because I don't think we could have handled it alone. Hordes of people line the river and the adjacent streets are packed with cars and people. There are hundreds of stalls selling food, sweets, drinks, firecrackers, and krathongs (the little boats) by candlelight. The noise is deafening. Hardly a second goes by without a pop or a bang of a firecracker, many of which I understand are homemade. Some of them are way too close and I am constantly flinching. I watched one boy throw a firecracker at a group of people with a grin on his face. Glad I'm wearing shoes.

The river appears to be the main target of the fireworks, most people light their bottle rockets or sparklers and let them fly into the river; but some folks appear more interested in the noise alone. Some of the explosives must be just that - actual TNT - because some are so loud that it is truly scary. I tried to take pictures, but I'm not sure how well they turned out because it's really hard to record landscapes like that at night. Plus it's hard to hold the camera still when I'm constantly flinching. I didn't see anyone get hurt, and we ourselves came out unscathed, but I'm sure the police and hospitals have a busy weekend. Just like 4th of July I suppose. Apparently you can't suppress stupid people with fireworks anywhere in the world. Boys...

So, we walked the strip (plugging my ears for much of it), bought and lit a lantern thing, and bought some strange gooey dessert item. Definitely an experience. Today, our hotel has a little party that where they will teach us how to make a krathong. Then we will all walk down to the river together and float our krathongs. We probably will not stay out quite as late tonight, just to avoid some of the madness - supposedly tonight is supposed to be even crazier.

Happy Loy Krathong!