Loy Krathong & Yi Peng

We might be missing a lot of fun US holidays but we're trying to begin enjoying the colorful and interesting holiday's here in Thailand. Our first occurred on November 21. It's called Loy Krathong. As Thailand is 98% Buddhist, most, if not all of the holidays revolve around Buddhist beliefs. But much like Christmas is to many people in the West, the holidays are now more for the "fun" and not as much for the reason they were first began.

Let me tell you, Thai's know how to celebrate. For the entire month of November we heard fireworks constantly. The good thing is that it's helped the boys get over their fire work phobia. :-) We'd hear fireworks all into the night and sometimes I'd get woken up at 4 am to the sound. The night of actual Loy Krathong (I think it's always the full moon) was like nothing I've ever heard. We walked "downtown" and the boys lasted a little while, but after about 30 minutes the noise was just too much for them.

Loy Krathong was basically begun as a holiday to give honor to the Goddess of water spirits. As your Krathong floats away, so do all of your troubles. Some people add money to their Krathongs to give to the spirits. I've been told you can see children a few meters down the river "hunting" for the Krathongs with money one them. :-) You can read more about Loy Krathong here.

Then there is Yi Peng. This is a Northern Thailand tradition, although it's so amazing that other central and southern cities have gotten into it. It's similar to Loy Krathong in that all of your cares and bad spirits are floating away. Here is a description I found of it.

Loi Krathong coincides with the Lanna (northern Thai) festival known as "Yi Peng". Due to a difference between the old Lanna calendar and the Thai calendar, Yi Peng is held on a full moon of the 2nd month of the Lanna calendar ("Yi" meaning "2nd" and "Peng" meaning "month" in the Lanna language). A multitude of Lanna-style sky lanterns are launched into the air where they resemble large flocks of giant fluorescent jellyfish gracefully floating by through the sky. The festival is meant as a time for “tham bun” - to make merit. People usually make khom loi from a thin fabric, such as rice paper, to which a candle or fuel cell is attached. When the fuel cell is lit, the resulting hot air which is trapped inside the lantern creates enough lift for the khom loi to float up in to the sky. In addition, people will also decorate their houses, gardens and temples with khom fai - intricately shaped paper lanterns which take on different forms. The most elaborate Yi Peng celebrations can be seen in Chiang Mai, the ancient capital of the former Lanna kingdom, where now both Loi Krathong and Yi Peng are celebrated at the same time resulting in and lights floating on the waters, and lights hanging from trees and buildings or standing on walls, and lights floating by in the sky.

We went to dinner at a restaurant right on the river pretty much at the central part of town....it has a beautiful view so we could see all of the Krathongs in the water and the and the lanterns in the air. We waited quite a while for a table but it was worth it!

The boys got pancakes for the first time in over two months. :-)

Orin about to put our Krathong in the water.

Some Krathongs are made from Styrofoam. These one are made from bread...more environmentally friendly. :-)

People shopping for the perfect Krathong. They are very cheap...the one we bought was less than a dollar.
We went up to the roof to let our lantern go. These are also very cheap. Maybe $1.50. The boys were sort of scared of it because of the fire. They stayed sort of far away - but were still so excited about it. They named it "Grump." I have no idea where the name came from. :-)

Waving goodbye to Grump.
We watched him for about 10 minutes until he disappeared behind a cloud. It was pretty amazing how far it went.