Loy Krathong Festival, Chiang Rai, Thailand 11/2/09

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Today is the Loy Krathong Festival in Thailand. It's the festival of lights and is celebrated nationwide like our Fourth of July. Fireworks, parades and food except the Thai make a float that you light and send down the river and light paper lanterns to soar into the sky.
It's celebrated on the full moon night of the 12th lunar month (November).
The Krathong (a vessel made of banana tree trunk) is decorated with leaves from plants, a candle, 3 joss-sticks (incense) and flowers. Each one is uniquely different as they are made by the person who will float (Loy) the Krathong down the river while making a wish, letting go of sins and bad luck in their life, and honoring the Water Goddess.
It's a fantastic festive atmosphere around town and it's very endearing and fun to participate. At the guesthouse, all the guests made our own Krathong floats after carefully observing the staff on their technique. Unfortunately, we did not possess the same skills and our Krathongs were not as "professional" looking as theirs. All the plant material we used came from the guesthouse grounds and we attempted to mold and twist and staple and nail our leaves into discernible shapes as best we could.
When it got dark, we went to the river, lit our candles and incense sticks, made our wish, and released the float into the river. After everyone released theirs, we returned to the guesthouse and lit paper lanterns to float into the air. They are spectacular and to see the sky lit with hundreds of these lanterns is amazing. The lanterns ascend pretty fast and are carried really really high and for a vast distance.
Later, Rick and I got a quick bite and filmed the Golden Clock Tower. It sits in a traffic roundabout in downtown Chiang Rai. It's usually a golden color until nighttime when at 7PM, 8PM, and 9PM it lights up various colors and plays music. The shows always have been different and we've seen it about 5 times so far over different days and times.
Enjoy the pictures & videos.

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Photos

Ploi and Nine (Guesthouse staff) & Krathongs
Apologies if we misspelled names. Ploi is by far the best Krathong maker- she made banana leaf birds.