Loi Krathong Festival of Lights

Saturday 24th November, 2007.

Loi Krathong is a traditional Thai festival, often called the Festival of Lights.  It's been around for so long that it's hard to distinguish when it first started.  Regardless, it's a fairly important festival/celebration for the Thai people.  Individuals build a "Krathong" which is a small raft, usually made with bamboo and banana leaves.  Three incense sticks, a candle, flowers and other small items are placed in the raft.  Then at the full moon of the 12th lunar month (24th November, this year), the raft is floated in a river, lake or the ocean.  One of the meanings is to honor Buddha.  Another is to wash away bad fortune and misery, and bring good luck.  David, in his Thai class at school, got to make his very own Krathong.  He carefully brought it home from school, then at about 6:30 PM, we walked over to catch a Baht Bus and head north to the Naklua market for one of the local festivals.  This particular festival had a lot of huge Krathongs that were being judged, but most of that was finished by the time we got there.  A few different performers were singing traditional Thai along with Thai dancers on stage. 

David got to launch his Krathong, although with the wind, we couldn't get the candle and incense sticks to light.  We really enjoyed this evening, as we were surrounded by many Thai celebrating a real tradition in their culture.  This wasn't a packaged "for your entertainment" event at a theater, but a normal part of the life of our country.  It's times like these that we feel both at home and in a foreign land, all at once.  The foreign part is fairly obvious...as we've never participated in any celebration like this.  The "at home" part is more subtle, and it comes from the accepting attitude of those around us.  In fact, my thumb still hurts four days later as I type this.  I happened to have a lighter for David's Krathong, and one of the locals asked me to help him light his candle and incense sticks.  In the tradition of my dad, I had to try to help.  So we huddled trying to keep the flame going on the lighter.  Flick.  Wind.  Flick.  Flick.  Wind.  Flick...flame!  Wind.  Flick.  Flick.  Flick.  Wind!  My thumb hurt from the lighter.  But finally we got the three incense sticks going.  Then we had to get the candle going, and in the process some hot wax fell on my left hand.  Ouch!  In typical Thai fashion, the guy I was helping smiled.  But he wasn't laughing at me, he was apologizing.  The smile goes a long way in that regard as a simple means of saying sorry.  I smiled back and kept trying to get the candle lit.  By this time, Devin had already taken David to go watch the performance while I finished.  Finally!  Candle lit and off he went.  I'm guessing the candle was blown out by the wind by the time he got to the water to float his Krathong...but it wasn't for lack of trying.

For more information about Loi Krathong, check out this link and this link.

Some pictures are below.  Click on the image to see a larger version.