Loy Krathong

Young girl in traditional dress at Loy Krathong

Last night was Loy Krathong, a festival to mark the full moon of the 11th lunar month, celebrated by floating “krathongs’ which are traditionally made out of banana tree trunk and leaves, decorated with flowers, incense and candles. Because of the mourning period following the recent death of the highest Buddhist monk in Thailand some of the other celebrations, such as fireworks and beauty contests, were cancelled or at least more subdued than usual.

Bread Krathongs with bling !

They are also made with less traditional methods such as these bread krathongs … make extra merit by feeding the fish and turtles !
They are certainly a better choice than the non biodegradable ones made with a Styrofoam base, that’s for sure.
It is amazing that these handmade items sell for a couple of dollars or less, even the large ones covered in orchids only cost 100baht or so.

Bread krathongs

waffle cone krathongs

After choosing your Krathong, be it traditional or modern, from the vendors it’s down to the river or lake to light the incense and candle and send them on their way.
The river current would help them on their journey, but at the lake in a local park that I went to there was only a fickle breeze which often died or returned them to shore !
Some people also place a few coins on their krathongs, so there were young kids searching through the marooned ones looking for a few baht pocket money, sometimes a bit too soon, before the krathongs had really set sail !