A cynics guide to Loy Krathong in Thailand

Loy Krathong is celebrated in Thailand in late November. It is hugely popular also in the surrounding countries, Loy Krathong is an important yearly event and an occasion to celebrate. It occurs on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Buddhist lunar calendar.

It consists of the floating of Loy Krathong’s into a waterway, releasing of sky lanterns, street parades, fireworks and bucket loads of wanker tourists all vying for what they think will be that one photo of themselves that will make their friends green with envy.

Chiang Mai has become one of the more popular hubs for the Loy Krathong festival with tens of thousands of farang converging on the city that has been rated as one of the top 10 most livable in Asian.

With that many tourists in one area, some of the peace of the experience is over shadowed by the shear number of annoying backpacker wankers that feel they can do as they please and fuck the rest of the planet.

Traffic is a nightmare during this time, especially on the final night with the release of the lanterns into the night sky. It became popular to release lanterns from the Mae Jo University grounds, but in recent years there has been a huge cover charge required to enter the event, apparently organised by a private Buddhist group where pre-paid tickets can be anywhere from $100-300. Because of this, many tourists are converging on the banks of the dyke next to the temple and releasing their sky lanterns from their.

Typically with Thai police being so effective at doing their jobs, its grid lock with people on foot, scooters and cars, all vying for a small strip of road. In my opinion, police should be more worried about people’s safety and work at controlling vehicular access and making everyone walk into the area making it much safer.

I did visit this area this year, and I won’t be going back. I got there by motorcycle, and within 10 minutes, the whole appeal wore off and we left, well tried to anyways.

If you expecting to see thousands of lanterns released into the sky in unison, then this isn’t the place to go. Where is, well it’s seeming the days of this happening are over and the best you can expect is to organise a few friends and release yours in some sort of choreographed spectacle and take a photo of that.

The main parade in Chiang Mai did have some awesome looking floats, but again the organisation of people and traffic took away from a lot of the appeal.

Add to that the delay in moving the various floats down the main street dragged an evenings of celebrations out into the AM hours.

Now what I did find appealing, is attending a local Wot, away from the bustle, where you could enjoy some quite time and actually reflect on what the whole event is all about.

One of the more disappointing elements I witnessed, and more so considering I was with a Thai national, was the offering of money in the Loy Krathong that was placed in the Ping River in Chiang Mai.

Now placing this offering in there is a spiritual belief, so then seeing grubby arseholes sifting through the water downstream to steal people’s money from the Krathong’s is just wrong in so many ways in my opinion.

I did enjoy the festivities in Chiang Mai, don’t get me wrong, but next year I will be far more inclined to go to a more rural setting, where you can actually enjoy the try meaning of it with locals instead of the now more present grab for tourist cash that the popular areas are aiming for.