It was the night of the November full moon, and a total lunar eclipse.
It was the night of the Yi Peng Festival, the main reason that we were visiting Chiang Mai and something that both my mom and I had been hoping to see for years.
It was an auspicious, magical, and spiritual night if ever there was one, and Mom and I found ourselves hurtling in a van along a Thai highway heading for a corn field in the middle of nowhere in the northern highlands.
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| it's difficult to photograph an eclipse with a mobile phone camera |
We had booked tickets to the Yi Ping festival weeks in advance, and I am so glad that we did.
When Mom and I arrived at Maya Mall, the pickup point for all vans, songthaews, and buses heading to the festival, we were shocked at the crowds and queues. Luckily, we found the booth for the travel agency we had booked from (Asia Highlights, highly recommended!), who took one look at our Premium VIP tickets and rushed us off to a private van. Those who had booked the standard tickets had to wait in an increasingly long queue to board a rickety songtaew (a sort of covered pickup truck with makeshift seats in the bed for passengers) for the long journey to the festival site.
The organizers were prepared for the crowds, that's for sure. There were stacks of pre-made krathongs for everyone in attendance, and then some! We helped ourselves to a pair of beautifully-made krathongs, the candles and sparklers upon which were thus lit by the attendant, and made our way along the rickety bamboo boardwalk out towards the water.
We placed our candles upon the wooden altars which surrounded the tree, making a wish as the warm light of our little candles joined with that cast by the flames of all the others, illuminating the tree in a cozy glow.
At 8:00 the fireworks ceased. We were herded in through wooden gates to the area where the main part of the festival was to be held. A sort of traditional northern-Thai pagoda had been constructed in the middle of the festival field, ringed by hundreds of white chairs for those in attendance.
As we took our seats and sat, waiting for the evening's cultural show to begin, we started feeling a little cold. Mom had to wrap up in her Cambodian krama to keep warm!
This did, of course, happen almost immediately! Fortunately, the paper is so thin that if it touches flame, it burns away almost immediately. I guess that's why they gave everyone two lanterns to launch, and not just one.
Visiting Chiang Mai for the Yi Peng Festival had been one of my big goals since I moved to Thailand nearly a decade ago. When I was working full-time at the school, I never had the time to head north for the holiday, and COVID really wrecked the possibility of celebrating it every year since.
Eventually, both Mom and I were able to release a lantern into the air. It was getting a little chaotic as everyone was struggling to light and launch their lanterns in the wind.
It is said that if you make a wish as you release your lantern, it will come true in the coming year. I just wish that somebody out of the hundreds at the festival had prayed that the stage wouldn't catch fire...
As we were making our way through the crowds to leave the field, I turned around to take one last photo, and was shocked (but not really surprised, in hindsight) to see that one of the lanterns had hit the stage, setting fire to the tip of the chedi. 
You really can't control the weather, and the night was windier than anybody had been expecting. Instead of floating straight up, the wind was blowing the lanterns sideways, and at some point, I guess it was inevitable that one out of the hundreds of papers lanterns would hit the stage.
When Mom and I arrived at Maya Mall, the pickup point for all vans, songthaews, and buses heading to the festival, we were shocked at the crowds and queues. Luckily, we found the booth for the travel agency we had booked from (Asia Highlights, highly recommended!), who took one look at our Premium VIP tickets and rushed us off to a private van. Those who had booked the standard tickets had to wait in an increasingly long queue to board a rickety songtaew (a sort of covered pickup truck with makeshift seats in the bed for passengers) for the long journey to the festival site.
Nearly two hours later, we were deposited in the middle of a corn field. In the distance, we could see the occasional box lantern or two flying dreamily up into the sky. This was the place - the only place - where the Yi Peng Festival was to be officially held this year.
There are a number of differences between the two festivals, however.
Yi Peng is an ancient northern Thai festival which, though distinct from the Loi Krathong Festival celebrated in the rest of the country, is nevertheless held on the same day.
Loi Krathong is celebrated on the full moon of the 12th month according to the traditional Thai lunar calendar, and Yi Peng is held on the 2nd lunar month of the traditional Lanna (northern Thai culture) calendar. In fact, the name of the festival, "Yi Peng", literally means "Second Moon" in Lanna-Thai. Over time, and as the Kingdom of Thailand absorbed the Kingdom of Chiang Mai became integrated into one, the festivals likewise became blended together.
Loi Krathong (as celebrated in Bangkok and the central region of Thailand) is a reverent night where Thais make offering baskets out of banana leaves, flowers, candles, and incense and float them down the river to give thanks to the river goddess. Descended from an ancient Hindu festival tradition from India, Loi Krathong is a beautiful and spiritual celebration which pays honor to the importance that the life-giving waters of the river have on the prosperity and development of the land. It's one of my favorite nights of the year, and one of the most beautiful Thai traditions.
Before entering the main area where the festival was to be held, Mom and I paid a visit to a more peaceful corner of the field, where festivalgoers were taking a quiet moment of contemplation to float a krathong on a little pond off to the side of the corn field.
According to the writings of the scholar-king Rama IV in 1863, the ancient Loi Krathong festival was derived from a Hindu water festival and adapted by Buddhists in Siam to honor the Buddha, Prince Siddhartha Gautama. The candle or sparkler placed upon each leaf basket venerates the Buddha with light, while the very act of floating a krathong away down the river symbolizes the letting go of the entirety of one's hatred, anger, and suffering. It's also meant to pay tribute to the Water Goddess, Thorani, who is said to have drowned out temptation and helped the Buddha achieve enlightenment as he meditated beneath the sacred Bodhi tree.
Using a basket at the end of a long bamboo pole, we gently set our krathongs on the water. They floated off into the distance, along with our wishes for a happy, prosperous, auspicious, and healthy year to follow.
As we entered the field where the festival proper was to be held, the air was thick with cheers and the sounds of firecrackers.
Yi Peng is a distinctly northern tradition, quite different from Loi Krathong, though the two festivals have become conflated and intertwined since Loi Krathong was introduced to the north in the 1940s.
The Yi Peng Festival evolved not from an Indian water festival, but from a Chinese sky festival, and the hallmark of the celebrations are fireworks, light displays, and the elegant box lanterns which are released to carry the wishes of the devout up to the gods in the sky.
We stepped into the dry grassy field beneath the raucous explosion of fireworks.
The northern air was dry and cool, and almost a little cold; very different from the weather we had experienced just days before in Bangkok. The gentle breeze blowing across the northern Thai highlands made the lanterns swing in the boughs of a big tree in the center of the field.
As we approached the tree, we were each handed a small votive candle in a terracotta cup. This was to be our second offering of the evening.
Cheers rocked the field as another box lantern went whizzing into the sky, propelled by a tiny rocket shooting a spiral of sparks.
We entered the relative quiet of the Premium VIP dining area (which, truth be told, looked nearly identical to the Standard and VIP areas).
While Mom saved us two seats, I went to check out the buffet.
At 8:00 the fireworks ceased. We were herded in through wooden gates to the area where the main part of the festival was to be held. A sort of traditional northern-Thai pagoda had been constructed in the middle of the festival field, ringed by hundreds of white chairs for those in attendance.
As we made our way to the seats, our path was illuminated by the twirling fire batons of traditional performers.
We had booked our tickets early and had reserved seats on the third row in front of the chedi. We were going to have excellent views.
The show started with a display of a Thai war drum performance. In the past, the Siamese army had specially trained musicians who would dance and beat drums to motivate the army as they marched into battle.
This was followed by a Lanna-style dance set to traditional northern Thai music.
Finally, a procession of monks stepped onto the stage and took seats which surrounded the chedi. Yi Peng is, after all a religious festival. The monks
Then, it was time for what we had all been waiting for! The drummers and dancers walked around the field lighting the little lanterns that could be found at each row of seats. The lanterns were, upon closer inspection, Red Bull tonic bottles filled with oil, but they did the trick!
A pair of thin mulberry paper lanterns had been folded up and tied to the back of each chair, and as soon as the instruction was given by the festival hosts, everyone began unfurling the surprisingly big lanterns.
Excitement swept across the field as the festivalgoers struggled to light the wicks beneath their paper lanterns from the flickering oil flames. With so much paper and fire, I had the feeling that someone was sure to set their lantern aflame by accident.
This did, of course, happen almost immediately! Fortunately, the paper is so thin that if it touches flame, it burns away almost immediately. I guess that's why they gave everyone two lanterns to launch, and not just one.
Once the wick on the lantern has been lit, the hardest part is trying to hold up the thin paper while the inside of the lantern fills up with enough hot air to start floating. It takes a few minutes before it's ready to lift up into the sky.
When everyone was ready, there was a countdown, and hundreds of elegant golden began floating gracefully into the dark night sky.
A cheer went up from the crowd, followed by the colorful explosion of fireworks.
It was a beautiful spectacle; exactly what I had always imagined it to look like! It really did look just like the postcards.
I'm really happy to have finally attended the festival, and I'm especially glad that my mom got to see it with me!
The wind had picked up. Launching the lanterns became more and more difficult, and more than once, I had to duck as a flaming lantern flew just over my head.
I have to admit that my first lantern went up in flames and burned to a pile of ash in my hands. I had a lot more success with my second one.
After getting our lanterns in the air, we decided that it was about time to leave. It had been a lot of fun, and I'll never forget taking part in this beautiful tradition.
It is said that if you make a wish as you release your lantern, it will come true in the coming year. I just wish that somebody out of the hundreds at the festival had prayed that the stage wouldn't catch fire...
Undeterred, the festivalgoers continued launching their lanterns into the sky as workers scrambled to rescue their expensive sound and light equipment. At least one of the big drums had gone up in flame.
We were already heading towards the exit, but I think we had left at the right time. Fortunately, there wasn't any panic. Nobody was hurt, and there was no real damage done (save for to the stage), but it's important to be cautious when things start to go wrong. We had had our fun, and it was time to go back to Chiang Mai.
Lights flashing, the on-site firetruck made its way through the crowds. This was the only officially sanctioned Yi Peng Festival held in Chiang Mai, and for good reason. The practice of launching sky lanterns on Yi Peng has been officially banned in other places throughout Thailand due to fire risks, which is why we had to go so far out into the middle of nowhere for the official festival.
We had booked Premium tickets, which were meant to ensure that we had a VIP van standing by to take us to and from the festival, but in the chaos and crowds leaving the event, we finally gave up waiting and searching for an empty van and hopped in the nearest waiting songtaew. Looking at the other passengers (all of whom seemed to be wearing VIP or Premium tickets around their necks), we weren't the only ones with the idea!
Everyone in the songtaew laughed together all the way back to Chiang Mai at the utter chaos that had capped off the beautiful evening. It's definitely something that I'm never going to forget.
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