Loi Krathong

We hate to say that Loi Krathong last night was a bit of a bust, but…Loi Krathong last night was a bit of a bust.

After a day spent at the hot beach, we had a quick dinner and returned back to the sand at nightfall. Hundreds of people (mostly Westerners) crowded the long beach, all with flower floats in hand. While our cheap one from the grocery store was made out of bread, it’s more common to see handcrafted floats made out of banana leaves:

Too Rich for Our Blood.

The only problem? It was super windy. The candles and incense on the flower floats were immediately extinguished, and the tides kept pushing all the floats back onto the sand. We had expected to see an eerily glowing ocean wonderland, but we saw black sea instead. Watch the crap video below of people bringing their floats into the water:

As we could always use a bit of extra luck while on the road, we were determined to get our little guy out to sea. We shoved the incense and candles into our bread flower:

Hanna Concentrating on an Oh-So-Difficult Task.

Mike Getting Mentally Prepared for the Task Ahead.

A local kindly lit ours for us, and Mike waded out into the water to give it a little push. The flame immediately went out, but the float seemed to head out to sea. Hey, as long as it didn’t come back to shore…

Many vendors were also selling the lanterns that were to be lifted into the sky. Because of the wind, however, the lanterns were floating back onto land as well. Quite amusing to see them get stuck in trees:

Why Yes, That IS a Lantern Resting Comfortably in a Palm Tree at the Top of This Picture.

We headed back to the stage of the previous night’s beauty pageant, and this time around a Little Miss pageant was happening. We totally felt like we were watching an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras:

Wearing More Makeup than Hanna.

Our original four picks from the top 15 didn’t make it to the final four, so we hightailed it out of there.

We felt a bit let down by the lack of flying lanterns and candlelit floats on this holiday, but that’s Thai weather for you.

Festival Weekend

This weekend is Loi Krathong here in Thailand. Occurring once a year on a full moon, Loi Krathong is a festival where people send flower-shaped floats out to sea for good luck. These floats are made out of bread or banana leaves and have incense and candles stuck in the middle. If the float goes out with the tide, you will have good luck for the next year. If the float comes back, you better watch out.

Last night was the eve of the big celebration but was a party just the same. We witnessed a beauty pageant with lots of ladies from the local bars, including our favorite-named bar–The Body Nude Club.

The Ladies

We couldn’t follow most of the pageant because they were speaking in Thai, but watching the creepy Western men take pictures of the ladies was entertaining all the same. Also entertaining was the drag queen hostess (far right in the above picture) whose favorite type of joke was sexual innuendo.

The other part of the weekend is the lighting of big lanterns and letting them float away into the night sky. We saw a few of these go last night, and they were truly beautiful…some did just catch fire and sink into the ocean. Here’s a video:

The festivities should be really fun tonight. Apparently the whole ocean fills up with the flower floats, and the sky will be full of lanterns. We already purchased our bread float for a dollar. Last night was great, and we are looking forward to tonight. Details to follow tomorrow.