Celebrating Loi Krathong

This year while my family and friends were stuffing their faces with turkey and pie for Thanksgiving, I was celebrating Loi Krathong in Thailand! It is purely coincidence that Loi Krathong fell exactly on Thanksgiving this year, but I was happy to have a reason to celebrate while far from home. Loi Krathong is a celebration of the Thai lunar calendar new year that takes place during the full moon of the 12th month of the lunar calendar. While it is thought to have originated in Sukhothai, the largest celebration of Loi Krathong is in the city of Chiang Mai, which just so happens to be close to my town! The celebration is known for the hundreds of thousands of lanterns that are set free to light up the night sky and the hundreds of thousands of krathongs (small, floating containers made from banana trunks and intricately decorated with flowers, banana leaves, incense, and candles) that are set adrift in waterways across Thailand and surrounding countries. This year, the Loi Krathong Festival took place from November 21-23. I attended two nights of the festival in Chiang Mai:

On Thursday, November 22, the second day of the 2018 Loi Krathong festival, my fellow foreign teacher (who happens to be Canadian) and I stopped at a Mexican restaurant in the city for a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner before heading to the celebration. So yes, this year I had an American Thanksgiving dinner of Mexican food in Thailand with a Canadian…. Happy Thanksgiving!

Now, back to Loi Krathong…

After our meal we headed from Tha Pae Gate on the edge of the old city, where the annual beauty contest was being held, to Narawat Bridge on the Ping River to see the lanterns and krathongs. Narawat Bridge is the place to be for the festival, with live traditional Thai music, food, and people everywhere. The walk to the bridge was about 20 minutes, but it didn’t take long before we started to see hundreds of lanterns littering the sky. It is difficult to convey how amazing and massive it is to see a stream of lanterns lighting up the sky, and even harder to capture in a photo, but it really was a once in a lifetime view. The streets leading up to the bridge were lined with food stalls and craft vendors. Everything smelled so tasty that we would have regretted eating beforehand had the Mexican food not satisfied a month-long craving for burritos (which are near impossible to find in Thailand unless you’re in a major tourist city).

As you get closer and closer to Narawat Bridge, there are more and more people. Thai people and tourists alike (LOTS of tourists…) gather to release their lanterns and float their krathongs. I bought a krathong from a street vendor (they are selling them everywhere) for 30 baht and headed down to the river bank to set it afloat. The releasing of the krathong symbolizes letting go of the sins and misfortunes of the last year. It is also the time to make a wish for the coming year!

On the last night of Loi Krathong there is a parade from Tha Pae Gate to Narawat Bridge. Bands from local schools play music while marching alongside flag twirlers, shimmering, bejeweled floats, and the beauty contest participants from the night before wearing traditional Thai clothes. While I don’t regret going to see the parade, I don’t think I’ll soon be spending another Loi Krathong in Chiang Mai. There are SO MANY PEOPLE. Tourists speaking every language you can think of push and shove each other to try and get pictures of the parade, and attempting to walk in any direction is painfully slow.  The lanterns are beautiful, but perhaps Loi Krathong would be more enjoyable in a smaller city or town in Thailand.