Loy Krathong Festival

Thailand's Loy Krathong festival or Festival of Light, takes place every year, on the night of the full moon when the tide is at its highest, in the 12th lunar month.  Translation - it usually takes place in November.

This festival is celebrated all over Thailand, with the most spectacular celebrations taking place in Chiang Mai, where it also coincides with the Yi Peng festival.  I would love to visit Chiang Mai during this time as Yi Peng is celebrated by flying off into the air hot air balloons made from rice paper and heated by a little tray of oil.

Loy means to float and krathong is (traditionally) a lotus shaped receptacle.

They are made from slices of trunk from either a banana tree or Spider Lily.  Occasionally they are made from styrofoam, though much less so these days.  The krathong are covered with decoratively folded banana leaves.  On these floats are added flowers and candles.  In addition they may also hold joss sticks, betel nuts, food, candy or coins.  The coins are said to be an offering to the river spirits.

The candles and joss sticks are lit.

A prayer is said and wishes made.  A couple who make a wish together are thought to stay together.

The whole family participates.

The krathong is then placed in the water and pushed away.  

This year the government has asked families not to place their krathongs onto the flooded roads, and to try to have only one krathong per family.  This is to cut down on the debis, which is now collecting all over flooded Thailand (see Sue's photos).  Some krathongs made of bread, which are of course more environmentally friendly and will eventually get eaten by fishes.  The styrofoam krathongs are the long term problem, but even the plant matter ones will take some time to degrade.

The family watches their float intently, hoping that it will not come back to shore.  Some people get into the water and splash the water in an effort to push it out.

As they watch their krathong float away, they hope that the flame will not go out.

The flame represents longevity, wish fullfillment and a release from sins

Loy Krathong is a night for courting couples.  The direction taken by their Krathongs foretells the future of their relationship.  If their individual krathongs float together, the couple will stay together, but if they float apart...
Loy Krathong is one of the most popular of Thailand's festivals.  Alongside the rivers, klongs (canals) and in parks, crowds of people gather to participate.

The festival was thought to have started in the 13th Century in the Kingdom of Sukhothai, but scholars now believe it may be an adaption of a Thai Buddhist Brahmanical festival.  This festival honoured the original Buddha; the lit candles to venerate Buddha and the  krathong floating away symbolised the letting go of anger and grudges and the restarting of life on a better footing.

There is another school of thought that says the krathongs were to apologise to the river or water goddess for having used and polluted her river.

Given the sheer amount of krathongs placed in the water, there has to be a lot of debris after.  Let's hope the river goddess appreciates the gesture.

Some kids go in the water after the krathongs.  Here in Lumpinin park, they were removing them from the water and giving them to adults, who were obviously taking them back to the park gates to resell after a quick freshening up!

Our first Loy Krathong was spent along the river at an old temple (Mary, Janice - the one from our temple, church, mosque walk).  There small children dived into the river and searched amongst the krathong for the coins.  This year I sincerely hope none of them have tried that, given the speed with which the river now moves.

An air of festivity surrounds Loy Krathong.  Vendors are out in full force selling their wares.  As befitting the Festival of Light, lots of items that lit up were for sale.  This year's big seller appeared to be the light up Minnie Mouse bow.

This little girl looked so cute in hers!

These youngsters have had to give in to sleep despite all the excitement around them.  

It was a lovely evening for Loy Krathong.  I suppose for thousands of people this year, this festival will be doubly important.  I'm sure we all hope that their wishes do come true, that the water recedes quickly and that they can return to their homes as soon as possible.

Before I go, please excuse the number of blurred looking photos.  Due to the lack of ambient lighting, I took most of them on a night setting which really requires static objects. Oh yes, and before you become overwhelmed with my knowledge of all things Thai, I thank Wikipedia!

The rest of this post is for those of us interested in tinkering with our cameras.

Below are some interesting effects from using the night setting on my camera.

First off, you really need to use a tripod unless you have super steady hands.  Mine aren't and I took this with my camera sitting on Alan's shoulder.  He obviously breathed at the wrong moment (I had asked him to hold his breath several minutes earlier whilst I set up my shot)!  Anyway, I like the effect that can be achieved with the light.  It is the same shot as the photo 5th from the bottom of the above photos, which I managed to get with a normal photo without flash.

This man was holding sparklers.  I took this on the tripod.  He moved slightly, so blurred, but the sparklers look really good.

The following three pictures I took again on the tripod.  Two children were playing with sparklers.  If you look below the lamppost, you will see a couple of loops of light from the sparklers, and if you peer really closely, the ghostly figure of a child.

I was quite a long way away from the children and on a little bridge looking down.  In this photo you can see a streak of light across the water.  The child had thrown the sparkler across the pond.  The slow closing of the shutter caught its trail.

This was one of the children running with the sparkler.  Again the slow shutter caught the trail of light.  I really liked the ideas that this sparked for some interesting creative photos.  For those who haven't got a tripod, I think you will need to brace your camera on a wall or something else static, and be careful when you press the shutter that you don't rock your camera.