Loi krathong!

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Over the past couple of days we have been participating in loi krathong and yi peng festivals in chiang Mai. Loi Krathong festival involves floating lotuses in the river, basically minature floats made if leaves and flowers with incense and candles are lit and sent off down the river. The yi peng coincides in the north ( which is where we are) with Loi Krathong. Yi Peng is a beautiful and dangerous display of paper lantern set off in the sky.
The hot spots to set off the lanterns is on the bridge. Fireworks are being set off everywhere, but not in an official way just everyone who bought fireworks on the street setting them off whenever they feel like is a good time, regardless of space.
Kristen and I bought 7 lanterns....perhaps too much bc we had to walk through hoards of people and carrying these was a bit cumbersome. But we made it to the river and set off our first lantern with great success! Then made our way to the bridge where we tried to set off a second one, a bigger one.. Combination of the wind and our lack of experience and all of sudden a side caught on fire. People rushed over to help us as I yelled stop drop and roll, and in the end the whole lantern burned up leaving only the lit core to burn on the bridge. And yes we just left it there... But these are the hazards of the festival, everyone just laughed at us, took pictures and then helped us try again! Gotta love this layed back environment!
We also ended up running into these lovely British girls we met in Bangkok on the bridge! We walked the river with them and back to the action on the bridge where things seemed to be getting a little precarious. One of the girls narrowly escaped a bottle rocket whizzing past here face, and lanterns kept getting stuck on electrical lines and lights and barely missing people's heads. At this point we decide that the bridge is inundated with reckless behavior and it's time to leave.
The whole next day was mostly worthless, we made plans to meet up with our new British friends that night and go to warm up bar, a scene for trendy locals far off the main area. Basically the night was amazing we had so much fun, and I don't think I spent more than 200 baht (6 bucks). All the Thai people were welcoming and we made many more friends! Freaking love it here!

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Comments

[madeleine]

fun!
sounds like you are having so much fun over there. do you know how long you will stay or is it just whenever it starts to feel old, you decide to come home?

[From non blonde]

Yeah more likely whenever I run out of money!