Loi Krathong 2020

🌕 🪔 🌺

Yesterday was a rare occurrence: it was the full moon, Halloween, and the Loi Krathong Festival.

Loi Krathong is the river festival - it's a day to give thanks to the river for its life-giving properties  and make wishes and merit for the year.
 

For a few days leading up to the festival, I had seen a number of different krathong floats available at the store. Some were plastic, many were the more traditional banana shoot, leaf, and flower floats, and others are the more modern bread floats which are meant to dissolve in the water and feed the fish.

This year, I picked my fiancee up after work, and we took a taxi together to Chatuchak Park, one of the city's biggest and most popular public parks. It was a fun and vibrant festival atmosphere, with tons of food vendors as well as people selling beautiful pre-made krathongs.

A krathong is a type of lantern basket, traditionally made from banana leaves and flowers. They always have a candle, three sticks of incense, and flowers, and are given as offerings to the river to thank it for its bounty. The river is the lifeblood of Thailand, and this is one of the most important festivals in Thai culture. 

We didn't only want to float a pre-made krathong this year, though. Instead, my fiancee and I decided that we were going to try making one ourselves. We carved out a half of a yellow watermelon, and loaded it up with candles, incense, and a flower garland.

We floated both krathongs together in the big pond at Chatuchak Park.

I was really happy to see so many people out and about on Loi Krathong night. Thailand has, at least for the time being, overcome COVID-19, but life here has been very subdued. People are still - and for good reason - trying to stay home as much as possible. 

Even though there were plenty of people at the park, everyone was wearing a mask and staying far away from everyone else, and temperature checks were mandatory before entering the park.

This is just the "new normal", and it goes to show how things can return to normal as long as people follow some basic rules.

I was worried that there wouldn't be much of a celebration this year, but I was happy to be proven wrong!

And I was happy to float my krathongs in the pond instead of the river (although the river is more traditional) since it's easier to clean the krathongs out of a pond. It's a beautiful festival, but I hate to pollute. This way, we can all celebrate, but it's easy to clean up afterwards!

Bonus video (and music)

This is not my video, but if you want to know a little more about Thai music and culture, check it out! This is the Loi Krathong Song, not only a great example of traditional Thai music, but also a very popular song to hear when you are out and about near Loi Krathong Day.

Enjoy!