This past Wednesday was Loy Krathong, one of the biggest, most popular, and beautiful festivals in Thailand. Lucky for me, Ayutthaya, the city I live in, is said to be one of the top four spots to celebrate this holiday in Thailand.
Loy Krathong always falls on the full moon of the 12th month of the Thai lunar calendar, or usually in November. The festival is held to pay homage to the goddess of rivers and waterways, Mae Nam. This is the time when Thai people give thanks to the river for their use of water and ask forgiveness in the ensuing pollution. "Loy" literally translates to "float", while "Krathong" is the Thai word for the lottus, blossum-shaped tray made out of banana leaves. The main tradition associated with Loy Krathong is that people celebrate by floating elaborate krathongs decorated with flowers, candles, and incense on any waterway in Thailand. To be even more environmentally friendly, some krathongs are made out of bread or coconuts for the fish to eat. I even saw some people getting really creative and making krathongs out of Ritz crackers. Most Thai people make their own krathongs at home and bring them to the celebration but I bought mine at the festival from a vendor on the streetl. It felt like I was carrying around a heavy birthday cake though.
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| Photo credit: Erin Deren |
From the moment I walked on to campus this day, I could just feel the holiday excitement in the air. Many of my M1 (12-13 year old) students ran up to me before school to show me their beautiful krathongs that they made. Some of them were truly impressive. It was fun to see how excited the kids were for this holiday. There's also a pond at my school where students constructed a gigantic krathong in the middle. It was awesome!
Loy Krathong offers a unique occasion to celebrate. It's the perfect time for people to make a wish and ask for good luck as you place your krathong in the water and push it away. Thais look to the future as they essentially "float away" bad things and misfortune through their floral offerings in the water. The lyrics of the Loy Krathong song include, "As we push away, we pray we can see a better day."
Myth has it that if your krathong floats far away into the distance until out of sight without the candle blowing out, then you will have good luck for the coming year. Some of the Thai teachers at my school told me that it's common to put clippings of your hair and fingernails in your krathong to represent getting rid of bad parts of yourself. As it turned out, I got out of work early this day and was planning to get my haircut anyway, so I asked the hairdresser to keep my dead end hair clippings to add to my krathong. At home, that would probably be a super weird request, but here the lady thought it was fantastic! I was also told it's common to put a few small coins in your krathong as a small offering but to not be surprised if I saw young boys swimming in the river collecting all the coins for themselves. Sure enough, the river boys were there.
While the lantern festival is famous up north in Chiang Mai, there was still a few places to buy lanterns to release in Ayutthaya. A few of my friends bought and released lanterns into the sky. I preferred to stay away from the fire and took pictures instead. It was such a cool sight to see so many lanterns in the sky, but I was a little nervous their lantern was going to hit a tree...
Aside from tons of food and drink stands, some of the traditional festivities include music concerts, fireworks, beauty competitions, krathong making contests, and cultural performances. There was also an entire carnival with shops, games, rides, and of course gigantic stuffed animals as prizes. The warm weather and large amounts of fireworks going off all night kind of reminded me of the 4th of July.
I absolutely loved this holiday! I hope I get the chance to celebrate a few more Loy Krathongs in my lifetime. My only complaint? Loy Krathong isn't an official public holiday and despite the late night festivities, we didn't have off work the next day...
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