So what is Loy Krathong? Loy means to float, and krathong is a small circular boat decorated with flowers, candles, incense, and a coin. The essence of the festival is for the Thai people to take a krathong to the river at night, light the candles and incense, and float it away. Traditionally, they include some fingernail clippings or a small bit of hair as a way of symbolically floating away the bad parts of themselves. This is supposed to be a way of casting out your grudges and negative feelings.
The actual festivities have expanded to include khom fai (paper lanterns that are lit by small fires and float into the sky), fireworks, beauty pageants, parades, giant krathongs, and sound and light shows.
Three nights before the actual holiday, we were in our hostel room, when Kinsey looked out of the window and said she could see the khom fai in the sky. I went over to the window, and sure enough, we could see a thin trickle of lighted paper lanterns rising over the city. We went out to the balcony for a better look. The lanterns are beautiful, and sadly, there is no good way to take pictures of them that actually represent how lovely they are.
Two nights before the holiday, we decided to go down to the river to see what it was like. Our hostel owner told us there would also be a parade, so we went to the Sunday Market and shopped our way down towards the river.
Fried banana turnovers...yum!
Okay, aren't these just the cutest things you've ever seen? Some kind of griddle cakes with the filling of your choice. They make them in front of you. Apparently, they weren't as tasty as the banana turnovers (Kinsey ate these), but how could you resist buying a fish? (Someone could be making a fortune at the New York Street Fairs with this thing...)
Halfway there, we came to Tha Pae Gate, and the city was having a beauty pageant. The area was also heavily congested with people everywhere, and the backstage area of the pageant had free khom fai. I wanted to light a khom fai, and thought this would be a good place to do it since there would be people who knew what they were doing to help out. After waiting my turn, I picked out a lantern--they’re all white and cylindrical in shape--pulled it open, and a man came over and lit the wooden burner in the bottom. Khom fai are a little tricky. Apparently you have to wait long enough for the hot air to fill the lantern sufficiently. If you don’t wait long enough, the lantern won’t rise or will rise really slowly (not an auspicious liftoff). If you wait too long, though, the lantern also won’t rise at all (bad luck). You are supposed to make a wish as you let go. We were lucky and our lantern lifted straight and true.
Later, we witnessed a lantern that crashed into a tree and burst into flames. No one seemed particularly worried, and the tree didn’t catch on fire. I wondered where all those khom fai eventually landed, but apparently, there’s no fear of fires starting.
After we cast off our khom fai, we noticed that the beauty pageant had just ended and a parade was starting, which turned out to be mainly a procession of the beauty pageant contestants and their consorts, along with some trucks and a few floats. The parade turned out to be a true Thai creation--ridiculously slow, confusing, and lacking direction. We started out watching the parade, but it wasn’t really moving much, so I told Kinsey we should just start following the parade route down to the water--I assumed the parade would reach there eventually, so we walked alongside the parade, quickly outstripping the beginning, and then, when the parade pretty much came to a standstill, we left it entirely and wandered down to the river.
If the khom fai were the peaceful, beautiful aspect of Loy Krathong, the river turned out to be the opposite. The closer to the bridges you got, the more you entered the “war zone.” All along our trek to the bridge, people had set up tables selling krathongs. I didn’t buy one, thinking we would get one the next day, but I wanted to see the river. I assumed the krathongs would be thick on the water, lit, and just as gorgeous as the khom fai. I was mistaken. People had launched krathongs, but most were unlit--or perhaps the candles had gone out--so they were just dark lumps in the water. Most were clumped around the banks.
(These pictures actually look better than most of the clumps in the river. I did want to show you how beautiful the krathong can be...but on a dark river, not so much.)
After I had taken as much noise as I could, I turned to go and saw a woman off to the side, selling little plastic bags of fish, eels, and turtles and little woven bamboo contraptions. I asked her what was in the bamboo baskets.
“Birds,” she said, and I realized what they were for. I had read that you could buy the birds and set them free. Desperate for a little good to come from the war zone, I bought three woven baskets, and told Kinsey what they were. Animal-lover that she is, I thought she would be thrilled to set them free, but she was instead dismayed that I was supporting the bird catchers. Nevertheless, we set to untying the bamboo cages. Each cage held a small family of birds. The first cage that we opened had five tiny birds, but when the lid lifted, the birds wouldn’t fly out. We tried tipping the cage a little, but the birds would not move.
“Put that one aside,” I told Kinsey. “Let’s try another one.”
The next cage had birds that were more desperate for freedom. Before we could even get all of the ties off, the birds were slipping through the opening. The birds in the third cage also took off without hesitation, but the birds in the first cage were still huddling miserably.
“Let’s take it back to Rachamankha House,” I said. “Maybe they’re just too scared here.”
So we walked back toward home. On the way, we met up with the parade again, which was still trudging along. I stopped to look at the birds. The noise from the fireworks had fallen away, and the street was relatively peaceful. I opened the cage. In the glare of the streetlights, one bird took off. Then another and another, until all of the birds had taken flight and the cage was empty.
I discarded the cage, and we walked through the end of the parade, back through the square of people lighting khom fai, back to the Sunday Market. We stopped for some very expensive gelato at an Italian restaurant, and afterwards, we shopped at all the stalls along the way. Kinsey bought a cute ceramic monk in orange robes, but the vendor would not barter much with the price. Musicians were singing and playing instruments, sitting cross-legged in a single-file row in the street. A very old woman was selling mobiles with little animals woven from reeds. The night wore on, and the vendors started to clean up their wares. Eventually, we turned from the market and walked over to Rachamankha Road, which was dark and quiet. At the house, we had to wake up the guard, who opened the gate to let us in. I turned back for one last look at Loy Krathong and saw hundreds and hundreds of khom fai floating on an invisible current out of the city, disappearing like our birds in the air.
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