#  >  > Thailand Festivals, Beaches, Scuba Diving and Temples, Tell us Your Tales >  >  > Thailands Festivals and Celebrations >  >  Loy Krathong

## dirtydog

Loy Krathong festival is a lot nicer than Songkran the Thai water festival, partly because it is only 1 evening as opposed to a weeks long endurance test, there are a lot less deaths over Loy Krathong, and you don't get soaked through with dirty disease laden water, so I don't mind Loy Krathong  :Smile: 

The only dangerous bits i saw was the Thai's laying on the beach whilst setting off rockets, I could just imagine a few sparks going onto their bodies and them panicking and forgetting where they were pointing the rocket.



The cheapest Krathongs were 30baht and most expensive Krathongs I saw were 80baht although I feel sure the Thai's could make a super duper farang one if you asked them nicely, I didn't take a picture of our Krathong as my girlfriend made it, normally she makes nice ones, for some reason the one she made looked like it had been scavenged out of the dustbin.



Some larger Krathongs.



The American hotdog culture seems to be becoming extremely popular in Thailand, hell, even all the 7/11s sell them, of course with hotdogs comes large weight gains, so don't expect to find too many petite Thai ladies in the future, of course the funny bit is they even deep fry the crab sticks, although I doubt there is too much crab in them.



Some healthy Thai food was available, although I just had pork noodle soup, 30baht and pretty tasty.



Deep fried fish balls and other stuff in batter, whatever happened to the more natural things that Thais used to buy to eat.



Dead Krathongs being washed up on the beach, the Thai kids have it well sussed, nick the money or satangs out of the krathong, take the candles out, then hunt down the next krathong with lit candles in.

One year I will have to get to the beach early to see what sort of mess it is left in.



I like these little hot air ballon things, you could tie a mouse up in a little cage and send him on his way out to sea, anyway this year they seem to have had a bit of a manufacturing fault with the ballons, I would say about half of them caught fire, ie the whole lot burst into flames before they got into the sky.

Some Japanese tourists, the Japanese girl was quite a looker but she sussed I was trying to get her in the picture so tried to hide  :Sad: 



And up up and away it goes dripping burning flames onto people as it flies away.

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## jandajoy

Are there any  BOOKS about this ?   :Smile:

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## puppy

According to several of my Thai students, this is also the time of year when young Thais go out and lose their virginity.

Apparantly, RCA is one of the best venues for this lusting wobblery.

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## mtone9317

I really enjoyed the festival. After having played in parade bands, I thought that the parade in Chiang Mai was the most fantastic parade I have ever seen. The women sitting on the floats were so beautiful they didn't seem real. The festival here in CM lasted three days. The good: parade and local orchestras onstage, the bad, a large amount of garbage left on the streets, and drunks, kids, or stupid people setting off fireworks from 3am to 6am every day of the festival. They ended that kind of nonsense years ago in SF after a couple of houses burned down because of bottle rockets, and some kids that fired off a military howitzer on the beach rocking a whole neighborhood. Thousands of calls to emergency services when the cannon went off because people thought it was an earthquake.

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## ocker692004

Looks fun for one day only.

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## 147SAG

Sorry I missed it this year, but will be there next year.

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## bobbysan124

I hope to see it next year also.

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## filch

It is nice to see and partake in, once, maybe twice. 

As a miserable klunt I prefer to stay at home and avoid the Songkran madness in Bangkok.

Nice photo's and narritive though DD.

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## Bower

I too was in CM for the festival, great time and amazing floats.
I noticed the krathongs in the main were still being made of bread rather than polystyrene(sure i've spelt this wrong) as in BKK.

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## Takeovers

I was searching for Loy Krathong and found this thread. I am aware I revive an oldie.




> I too was in CM for the festival, great time and amazing floats. I noticed the krathongs in the main were still being made of bread rather than polystyrene(sure i've spelt this wrong) as in BKK.


But I want to say I was there for Loy Krathong in Bangkok in the seventies. The floats were almost 100% styrofoam and plastic flowers. Glad to hear they are back to something more sensible.

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## pescator

Bread? They are traditionally produced from slices of the banana plant`s trunk.

Upcountry, most folks use this material.

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## Kurgen

It still feels weird, to me, when one of the dogs threads crop up again.

...

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## Takeovers

> Bread? They are traditionally produced from slices of the banana plant`s trunk.
> 
> Upcountry, most folks use this material.


I too wondered about bread. Would it not soak up water very fast and sink? Unless it is coated with something.

My recollection of that night many years ago is very dim, only that the kratong I floated was about the only one made of traditional materials, not plastic. And I think banana leaves but not sure. I think I would remember if it was bread.





> It still feels weird, to me, when one of the dogs threads crop up again.


His name was the reason I picked this thread out of the list of search results.

I had hoped to find something about Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai but did not find anything.

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