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| Krathong |
It's holiday season in Thailand, too! Loi Krathong (that's pronounced kra-tong, like the th in Thailand) falls on the night of the full moon during the 12th month in the Thai lunar calendar. This year it happened to be on the 17th of November, 2556.
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| Little cutie with a dying sparkler |
People celebrate by making or buying a Krathong. It is traditionally a slice of a banana-tree trunk, but sometimes made from other plants or styrofoam. After decorating it with flowers, banana leaves, coins, food, incense sticks, and candles, it is sent out on the water - lake, pond, canal, river - depending on where you are in Thailand. People send with the krathong their own negativity/bad luck/misfortune as it floats away. It is also meant as a way to honor the goddess of water.
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| Lighting their krathong, getting ready to set it into the water |
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| Table of krathongs for sale |
There are celebrations all over the country, but the biggest ones are usually in Chiang Mai and Sukothai where they start with parades and continue the celebration for days. Here in Hat Yai, everything was pretty quiet until the sun went down and the park started filling up with people. There were tables lining the streets around the park to sell krathongs and lanterns. Little kids ran around with sparklers, which I'm sure is a more recent addition to the holiday traditions.
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| So my camera isn't great with night photos. It was smoky, but you can see some krathongs floating away! |
As beautiful as it was here in this city, I can only imagine how awesome it was in Chiang Mai and Sukothai! Here, people met up in many different parks, the biggest being the one near our apartment. But we could see little clusters of lanterns going up all over, surrounded by street lamps and lit buildings and parking garages. It was still incredible, but in the more traditional cities with bigger celebrations, there are tons of people that meet up all in the same place. They send up clouds of lanterns all at once and float their krathongs in front of lit temples. I hope our friends in those areas took pictures!
Kevin participated by trying to send up his own lantern. The Thai lady
that he bought it from insisted on "helping" him by lighting it for him,
holding it with him, and then releasing it for him... too soon. She
had to run and catch it before it lit some little kids on fire, and then
re-release it to float away. If you can't tell by the look on his face, he would rather have done it himself.
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| View from our apartment that night |
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| Looks like stars - just imagine them all slowly drifting across the sky |
As beautiful as it was here in this city, I can only imagine how awesome it was in Chiang Mai and Sukothai! Here, people met up in many different parks, the biggest being the one near our apartment. But we could see little clusters of lanterns going up all over, surrounded by street lamps and lit buildings and parking garages. It was still incredible, but in the more traditional cities with bigger celebrations, there are tons of people that meet up all in the same place. They send up clouds of lanterns all at once and float their krathongs in front of lit temples. I hope our friends in those areas took pictures!
Kevin participated by trying to send up his own lantern. The Thai lady
that he bought it from insisted on "helping" him by lighting it for him,
holding it with him, and then releasing it for him... too soon. She
had to run and catch it before it lit some little kids on fire, and then
re-release it to float away. If you can't tell by the look on his face, he would rather have done it himself. 
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