Loy means "to float" and Krathong is the name for a little boat made out of folded banana leaves, flowers and candles. Each year, this festival is held for a few days during the full moon. This is the time of year when fireworks fill the air with color and light, floating lanterns are puffing up into the sky over your head, and people are gathering near the river to let their Krathongs float away. Sounds peaceful? Not so much. Enter the battlefield of Loy Krathong. I have never in my life heard fireworks so loud. Just walking down the street where one would think to be moderately safe from harm, makes you think twice about what safety means to you. These unexpected explosions made me jump, yelp and grab my friends. If you know me well, I'm the kind of girl that leaps (with. out. fail.) when the toaster is done. I don't do well with jack-in-the-boxes. Imagine me. Luckily, the brain works in mysterious ways to make a person adapt to surroundings, so surprisingly I was getting more used to it as the night went on. Besides the loud fireworks, let me say something about where these fireworks were being let off. The answer? Anywhere there is a match to light it. Anywhere and everywhere. Especially where there are buildings, trees and people. My Thai friend says each year in the newspaper there is a list of people who lose fingers, limbs... I also heard that people make homemade fireworks by filling ping pong balls with gunpowder, sometimes coconuts too..? Scary. This is not to even mention the smaller fireworks. I saw a girl light a sparkler in a crowded place and held onto a string and whipped it around behind her, without even looking of course. You learn to duck or jump at times like these. Whipping tether balls of fire in crowded places looks like a good time until someone gets hurt. A friend of mine bought a large tube and lit it, pointed it to the sky like a good, safe citizen. A beautiful blast of color shot out. He thought there was only one explosion in the tube so he started to walk away (wishing he didn't spend so much on one little firework) but it kept shooting out quiet thumps of fire. It took him until #4 to realize he was blasting people. Admittedly
hilarious to witness from a safe distance. My pictures didn't turn out so clear because of all the smoke in the air (see other photos on the Loy Krathong link under photo archive).
The floating lanterns are just as popular and a bit less dangerous. These giant bubbles made out of paper fabric can be bought anywhere and everywhere. Light the big piece of charcoal that sits in the center of the lower ring, and wait. The lantern collects the hot air and expands. It takes a few minutes until the air gets hot enough to rise, and it's fun to watch people discuss whether they are ready to let it go or not. Some let go of the ring and it just sits still in space, sometimes it drops. You have to be patient and hold it until just the right moment. Thousands of these lanterns getting ready to launch in the street along with the ones floating just overhead and the ones that are high in the sky definitely makes for a magical sight. Walking around with my eyes to the sky in awe doesn't help my chances for avoiding those darn fireworks going off everywhere. What a sight though, honestly. It really seemed like a child's painting of a night sky with 5,000 extra golden stars. Besides the magic, I had a motherly concern for the lanterns that got caught in the trees, or the ones stuck on the power lines, still aflame. Not a firetruck or a police car in sight. I did see one ambulance the whole night...almost comforting.
The Loy Krathongs was probably the safest activity you could partake in, which we did. We bought our favorite krathongs from vendors on the street. The vendors were frantically trying to make more for the growing demand of buyers. We lit small sparklers, the candles, and the incense sticks and walked to the river's edge. I was told to make a wish and say thank you to the river goddess for providing us with water. I couldn't think of anything that I would wish for, so I just said thanks over and over again. I guess that's a good sign. Hundreds of krathongs were floating along the river and ironically, these krathongs are also a way to say sorry for contributing to the pollution of the water over the last year. Hmmm. Irony is nothing new here.
Loy means "to float" and Krathong is the name for a little boat made out of folded banana leaves, flowers and candles. Each year, this festival is held for a few days during the full moon. This is the time of year when fireworks fill the air with color and light, floating lanterns are puffing up into the sky over your head, and people are gathering near the river to let their Krathongs float away. Sounds peaceful? Not so much. Enter the battlefield of Loy Krathong. I have never in my life heard fireworks so loud. Just walking down the street where one would think to be moderately safe from harm, makes you think twice about what safety means to you. These unexpected explosions made me jump, yelp and grab my friends. If you know me well, I'm the kind of girl that leaps (with. out. fail.) when the toaster is done. I don't do well with jack-in-the-boxes. Imagine me. Luckily, the brain works in mysterious ways to make a person adapt to surroundings, so surprisingly I was getting more used to it as the night went on. Besides the loud fireworks, let me say something about where these fireworks were being let off. The answer? Anywhere there is a match to light it. Anywhere and everywhere. Especially where there are buildings, trees and people. My Thai friend says each year in the newspaper there is a list of people who lose fingers, limbs... I also heard that people make homemade fireworks by filling ping pong balls with gunpowder, sometimes coconuts too..? Scary. This is not to even mention the smaller fireworks. I saw a girl light a sparkler in a crowded place and held onto a string and whipped it around behind her, without even looking of course. You learn to duck or jump at times like these. Whipping tether balls of fire in crowded places looks like a good time until someone gets hurt. A friend of mine bought a large tube and lit it, pointed it to the sky like a good, safe citizen. A beautiful blast of color shot out. He thought there was only one explosion in the tube so he started to walk away (wishing he didn't spend so much on one little firework) but it kept shooting out quiet thumps of fire. It took him until #4 to realize he was blasting people. Admittedly hilarious to witness from a safe distance. My pictures didn't turn out so clear because of all the smoke in the air (see other photos on the Loy Krathong link under photo archive).
The floating lanterns are just as popular and a bit less dangerous. These giant bubbles made out of paper fabric can be bought anywhere and everywhere. Light the big piece of charcoal that sits in the center of the lower ring, and wait. The lantern collects the hot air and expands. It takes a few minutes until the air gets hot enough to rise, and it's fun to watch people discuss whether they are ready to let it go or not. Some let go of the ring and it just sits still in space, sometimes it drops. You have to be patient and hold it until just the right moment. Thousands of these lanterns getting ready to launch in the street along with the ones floating just overhead and the ones that are high in the sky definitely makes for a magical sight. Walking around with my eyes to the sky in awe doesn't help my chances for avoiding those darn fireworks going off everywhere. What a sight though, honestly. It really seemed like a child's painting of a night sky with 5,000 extra golden stars. Besides the magic, I had a motherly concern for the lanterns that got caught in the trees, or the ones stuck on the power lines, still aflame. Not a firetruck or a police car in sight. I did see one ambulance the whole night...almost comforting.
The Loy Krathongs was probably the safest activity you could partake in, which we did. We bought our favorite krathongs from vendors on the street. The vendors were frantically trying to make more for the growing demand of buyers. We lit small sparklers, the candles, and the incense sticks and walked to the river's edge. I was told to make a wish and say thank you to the river goddess for providing us with water. I couldn't think of anything that I would wish for, so I just said thanks over and over again. I guess that's a good sign. Hundreds of krathongs were floating along the river and ironically, these krathongs are also a way to say sorry for contributing to the pollution of the water over the last year. Hmmm. Irony is nothing new here.
1 comment:
oh my gosh! we saw quite a few children get hit in the face with the fireworks on a string, although I have to admit I did think it was fun to light stuff on fire and fling it through the air. my host brother thought it was really cool to light 15 sparklers and then hold them in his mouth--admittedly something that I had never thought of. I can still sing the Loy Krathong song in my head because we listened to it over and over again..I am so happy you are there. It brings back such awesome memories for me!! xoxo
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