Happy Loy Krathong today!

vinlyn

Set your little boats afloat!

robot

I didn't know anything about it until my cab driver mentioned it when I told him I was flying to Krabi town. It looks like I came to the right place. Flower boats everywhere you look today.
What's it about?

vinlyn

Apparently it was originally a Hindu ceremony that was adopted by the Thais to honor Buddha. People make a small home-made boat and in it place a candle (representing the shining light of Buddha), and when one puts the boat in the water it symbolizes letting go of hate and anger and any "sins" they have committed. I was always told it began in the first true Thai capital -- Sukhothai, so probably in the 1200s.

robot

Thanks. I'll watch the fun this evening. Maybe buy one. From the looks of things there will be thousands of them in the estuary. Pretty organic except for the candles.

robot

Turns out I didn't have to buy one. My hotel gave me one. I'll launch it this evening.

robot

Pretty big party. The whole waterfront smells of incense.

Jainarayan

What a nice celebration. I would love to make a little boat of something with a light (bio-degradable of course) and float it on one of the rivers. Unfortunately, while we do have a few rivers nearby, access to the riverbanks is usually blocked by personal or commercial property. :grumble:

Btw, here are a lot of pretty pictures of it.

https://google.com/search?q=Loy+Krathong&rlz=1C1EODB_enUS532US532&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=etyIUrTyFLeu4AOA5oG4CQ&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=1152&bih=750

federica

Those airborne lamps are a nightmare. I think they're positively dangerous. Sure, they look so pretty....but can you imagine one, launched on a midsummer evening, coming to land on a thatched roof?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/02/sky-lanterns-danger-farm-animals

vinlyn

The traditional Thai festival is little boats on the water.

robot

Hey @vinlyn. I went to Wat Tham Suea like you said. It's a pretty serious climb to the Buddha statue for sure. I thought maybe I'd bitten off more than I could chew on the way down. I was sweating and panting and my legs were both shaking. Gotta get in shape.
When I saw some garbage on the way up I was wondering what kind of slobs would throw their stuff on the ground. Then I saw a monkey snatch a water bottle from a Russian lady, unscrew the top, chug the contents and toss the bottle away. When I went to pick up the empty the damned thing snarled at me like it was my fault.
The stupa they are building there looks like it will challenge Wat Arun for size.

ThailandTom

vinlyn said:

The traditional Thai festival is little boats on the water.

Boats and lanterns actually, it depends on the region though, the more touristy the more lanterns. That is what the movie The Beach has done :rolleyes:

Anyway I always wonder why you do not come back to Thailand Vinyln, you talk about it a lot, but then again you seem to be afraid of the possible unrest? I saw a documentary on the Fukushima disaster last night (and before you jump on me it had many credible scientists and sources lol), but the radiation released already is around 10x worse than that of Chernobyl. The maps show that the convectional currents have already carried a load of highly radioactive material to the West coast of the US and inland somewhat. All of the material is heading East of Japan due to the currents and the ocean. Blah I am going to start a new thread on this, but my point is that I just sometimes wonder how much you yearn to return...

vinlyn

Yes, after doing a little research, some do use the lanterns, although that is not the original tradition.

It isn't so much the unrest in and of itself that led me to leave Thailand (although I think the unrest is not over...and it is actually building again, and I have the sense that these so-called democratic demonstrations -- which have virtually nothing to do with democracy -- are simply taking the place of forcing change by harsh political means, rather than by military coup) (and, BTW, the red shirts are the red shirts not by coincidence...some of the original red shirts leaders from Issan were former communists).

But I see a meanness (for wont of a better word) taking over Thai politics and other aspects of Thai life that I never saw before. Torching 30 major buildings in Bangkok (including the largest shopping mall in SE Asia; and not to mention a number of city halls upcountry) at the end of the demonstrations 3 years ago was just plain meanness. Threatening the well-being of the judiciary is hardly democratic, and it is just plain meanness. Threatening the life of Prem -- at the age of 89, and one of the king's most valued advisers -- unheard of in the past. The increasing number of Westerners who die in Thailand under suspicious circumstances...including the increasing number of Western men who accidentally fall from high rise hotel balconies...is a disregard for those who are non-Thai. Students attacking bus drivers in Bangkok...virtually unheard of in the past. Throwing hand grenades into local markets over politics...just plain meanness. The society has switched from far too much mai pben rai to virtually no mai pben rai.

I'm not so sure that a young person might see the changes. But it is not the same Thai culture I loved for so many years. That's the culture I deeply miss.

ThailandTom

I also think though that a lot of this has to do with you actually being in Bangkok. In the far South as you know there are problems ongoing, but there are many places where the things you listed do not exist. I have myself only seen 1 street fight in nearly 4 years and that was just teenagers. Places like Phuket and Pattaya I wouldn't touch with a barge poll, many foreigners get scammed there or killed that is quite true, but Bangkok is like most capital cities, the centre of all the crime that goes on here. So naturally I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could, also because of the pollution and chaos. I never knew the red shirts were communist in the beginning, interesting.

The lanterns are not traditional no, but they have fallen into the tradition somehow along the way.

If it came down to it though what would you do and where would you, say if all of this radiation that is coming over get to really dangerous levels what would you do then?

vinlyn

Not all red shirts were communist. But a few of the leaders had been involved in the CPT years ago.

Not sure we could do much about the radiation.