Well, I’m back home and starting to sort through all the photos and videos I took at the Phi Ta Khon festival. This is one of the “mud men” in the parade. A group of men, often encouraged by the consumption of copious amounts of lao khao (rice whiskey), cover themselves in mud from the local river and shuffle through town. The mud men channel the town’s guardian spirit, Phra U-pakut, who lives in the river. The origins of the festival are a bit hazy, long lost in time, but involve all sorts of animist spirits, fertility spirits….and a fair bit of alcoholic spirits!