The next evening is the actual full moon ceremony, and tens of thousands of people will spill out into the streets of Chiang Mai to celebrate. Iva, the whirlwind traveler has arrived in town from her densely packed itinerary just in time to celebrate Loi Kathrong with us. We sat down with her during the day and she regaled us with stores of where she had been in the last 10 days: the temples of Angkor Watt in Cambodia, the ruins in Ayutthaya, the beaches of Phi Phi. "So what have you guys done since I last saw you?" she asked.
"Um. We took the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai... Oh and we ate a lot of food. Like, A LOT of food! And... we're seeing Loi Kathrong tonight!"
This is the main event, releasing the Krathong into the river
A Krathong is an offering made of banana leaf and wood shaped into a lotus flower. They are typically decorated with a candle, an incense stick, perhaps a coin and a lock of hair. The idea is to place all of your bad fortune into the Krathong and release it into the river away from you.
When a few people release krathongs, it seems like a deeply personal affair
But it's not a Festival of Lights if only a few people do it...
When thousands of people line the shores of the river and release thousands of these lit-up krathongs, it is quite a sight! That's a lot of bad luck floating down the river...
And floats. Each year there is float dedicated to the Queen Noppamas Beauty Contest
The first person to ever create a Krathong was Noppamas, the daughter of a Brahmin priest in 1850AD, she presented it to the King of the Sukhothai kingdom and he released it into the river. Then he married her. Then came the floats.
During the parade, we glance up at the sky...
It was breathtaking. Thousands of orange lights, like fireflies rising up into the dark clouds of the night sky. It all seemed to be coming from Wat Phan Tao temple, so we quickly headed over there to see what was going on.
At the temple, there was a crowd of people all releasing paper lanterns balloons
Although Loi Krathong is Thai holiday, Chiang Mai has put a special twist on this celebration. Because Loi Krathong also coincides with the Lanna (Northern people) festival called Yi Peng, this tradition also launches thousands of paper lantern balloons into the sky like embers rising from a flame. So along with the thousands of Krathongs floating down the river, you have the mirror image of the paper lanterns floating up in the sky. It truly is a Festival of Lights!
How do you get yourself a paper lantern? Well one way is to donate some money to the temple...
The lantern is called a Khom Loi, and like the votive candles, you write your wish or dreams on the side of the lantern balloon
Here's a Hello Kitty Khom Loi. Not sure what the wish here is... Maybe a pink bowtie for Christmas?
The Khom Loi are lifted up by a wax disc that's set on fire. It is also capable of setting your head and hair on fire if you're not careful. True story...
You hold the lantern upright until the candle has filled the inside with hot air, then as it becomes light, you let it go...
Looking up, it looks like something from an astronomy textbook!
If you think this is not entirely safe for airplanes, you're right. On the night of Yi Peng, you're only allowed to launch lanterns within a small window of time in the evening of the full moon. During that time, all flights are routed around the Chiang Mai area. If you launch a lantern outside of this window, you face stiff penalties up to and including the death sentence. Yes, you can actually be put to death for having too much fun.
But nobody here is thinking anything remotely close to that
Although Loi Krathong is the main national event, in Chiang Mai Yi Peng is by far the more popular activity
Throughout the night, thousands of these lanterns are released
After all the tourists leave at the end of Loi Krathong, it's up to a cadre of local volunteers mostly made up of university students, to scour the dam's reservoir of Krathongs and hiking up the hills around Chiang Mai to collect the landed Khom Loi. It's not a job that's much-publicized, but an essential part of the lifecycle of the festival.
Fireworks explode, providing a brilliant backdrop to the rising khom loi
Paper lantern hopes and wishes
Held high with both hands
Lit up from inside with
equal parts imagination and willpower
Dream hard and let go
And let's see where it flies off to
- Yi Peng, Chiang Mai 2558 BE / Toronto June 14th, 2012
The full moon celebrations are still in full swing in Chiang Mai. Typically throughout the rest of the year, the population here numbers around 400,000 people, but during Yi Peng, an additional 200,000 tourists flock to the city, exploring every nook and cranny during the week around the full moon. We arrived a few weeks before all the mayhem, but because we're travel fatigued, we didn't venture out too much. Now with Iva pulling us out into the city during the few short days that she's here, we're astounded at just how many people are here.
The old town of Chiang Mai used to be walled off in a square. You can see the configuration in the map above.
Today, most of the walls have crumbled away, only the four corners and a few bits exist along the moat that still surrounds the old city. We still don't know the city very well, but we use these corners and wall bits to orient ourselves when we're navigating through Chiang Mai.
Wat Lok Moli. This is the closest temple to us and we pass it all the time when we head to the old city
Tonight, we're walking to the Sunday Night Walking Street Market, which is held near the Tae Phae Gate, on the other side of the city. As we get closer to the old town the crowds become a lot thicker.
Lanterns at Wat Lok Moli. Some of these smaller, lesser known temples are not as crowded during Yi Peng, but they are still decorated quite nicely
Every Sunday, the streets west of Tae Phae Gate into the old city close off to vehicle traffic and stalls set up for pedestrians to walk by
It just so happens that the bazaars during Yi Peng are absolutely packed. There is barely any room to move! A few times I lost Neda and Iva because while they perused the stands looking for bargains, my eye was glued to my camera.
Need shoes? You've come to the right place!
These are Hmong embroidered shoes, mostly for kids. The Hmong are one of several ethnic hill tribes that live in Northern Thailand. Each of the hill tribes have their own dialects and style of dress.
In the process of knitting hats worn by the hill tribes
These are tiny dyed soaps sculptures carved into flowers! We saw a guy making them, it was quite intricate. So small it fits in the palm of your hand.
These ladies are from the Karen hill tribe. They seem to wear less embroidered clothes than the Hmong.
Some of the Karen hill tribe women wear gold rings around their necks to stretch and elongate them over time. I'd like to visit a Karen village and see this during our stay in Northern Thailand!
Heavy full moon traffic outside the Tae Phae Gate
See those red covered trucks? They're the most popular mode of public transport in Chiang Mai. They're called Song Thaews, but Iva called them Fire Trucks and the name stuck with us. Having been here for a while, we also found out these Fire Trucks are the cheapest method of getting around. Only rich farang tourists take the tuk tuks, which will cost you about 50 baht ($2) to get you anywhere in the old city. By contrast, hail a Fire Truck heading in the direction you're going and it will only cost you $20 baht (less than $1). The only catch is that you share them with whoever else hails one along the way, and the Fire Truck driver will often take the least direct/most circuitous route to pick up as many passengers as possible.
Still, it's a good deal and we feel like such locals willfully ignoring all the drivers who cluck at us as we walk by: "Tuk tuk? Tuk Tuk?"
Buddha art. This is not considered very ethical by Thai people
When we first arrived at Bangkok Airport, we saw lots of signs and posters informing us that it is disrespectful to use the imagery of Buddha, either as pictures or statues for decoration. Since it's a very religious symbol, Buddhists only use it for worship. So all of these Buddha paintings and carvings that are sold to tourists to hang on bathroom walls and used as garden sculptures are very offensive.
A proper use of the Buddha statue
Incense and bells are two of the most important objects in Buddhism. The bells signify the voice of Buddha are a call for protection by heavenly deities.
Colourful painted bowls. The Bazaar makes for some colourful night-time photography!
I'm glad that we took a week off before Iva came to visit us in Chiang Mai. We have quite a full itinerary while she's here... But if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't see any of it!
Of course food plays an important part of any celebration!
Neda orders some fried dumplings. Mmmm...
Gahhhh! So many people! Is it wrong to long for Yi Peng to be over and wish them all away from our city?
Yes, it's only been a few weeks but already we've started to think of Chiang Mai like home. But more on that later...
We've been in Thailand for just over a month and not too much has happened. Iva was only with us a for a few days longer in Chiang Mai, so the girls took a cooking class just outside of the city.
First stop before cooking class is a trip to the local market to pick up ingredients
I also took a cooking class, so there are some pictures interspersed of my trip to the market. This is our cooking instructor Phern
Neda is getting some good tips on which are the best spices and sauces to use
About 45 minutes outside of Chiang Mai, our cooking school is in the middle of the farm. Cool!
Fresh ingredients are picked from the garden just outside
The class is set up so that all the ingredients are brought to you and all the pots and pans are washed after you're done with them.
We should go to cooking school every day! 55555!
Oh yeah, I also picked up some Thai Internet lingo. The number "5" is pronounced "ha".... so "55555" = "hahahahaha"
I'm only attending cooking class for all the eating at the end. And because I look so good in an apron...
Before this class, I had no idea what went into green curry. Basically you pound a bunch of ingreendients and you end up with a paste. Neat!
My green curry paste is on the right, Neda's is on the left. Mine's smoother... 555. The only thing I'm better at cooking than Neda is brute force mortaring and pestling.
The format of the class is that for each dish, our instructor shows us what to do
and then we are off to our individual stations to make magic
I found out that there are just a handful of ingredients that you use for Thai cooking: coconut milk, lime, fish sauce, palm sugar, garlic, shallots and basil. It's the combination and amounts you use to come up with a variety of dishes.
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