Veer: Loy Krathong

Loy Krathong is one of the many pretty festivals that Thailand has. At school, we had an activity day where each class made Krathong's which are the lovely flower floating thingy's that you would typically see associated with the holiday. I was really excited to learn myself. The base is actually made out of slices of banana tree trunk. You use banana leaves to make the outer decorations of the Krathong... and there are many different patters and designs you can use. I learned how to do the simple lotus look with my class. We used metal pins to hold everything together, but you can also use wood or toothpicks... more eco friendly... Brian's class used that and we instituted it on ours later.

Each of my students brought in flowers, candles, and incense for their krathongs. I asked my teacher if I could make one and she was thrilled that I wanted too. We also made a class Krathong for floating the next day in the schools pool. It was a fun day! I kept my krathong in the fridge until the actual day... it stayed quiet well in the 3 days!

My class hard at work!

Khun Kru Mi instructing...

I helped Toby with this design :)

Our classes pretty krathongs...

CHEESE

The next day at school we had another Loy Krathong event. The school decided to have a beauty contest/ pageant. It was actually very cute to see all the girls AND boys get dressed up and strut their stuff. I heard some of my students say they woke up at 5AM to get ready!

The contestants waiting....

So Cute!

Some of my girls...

Ahhh so pretty!!!

Brian with his student Simon!

Some of Brian's boys...

What a cute couple!

So elegant!

Perfect :)

See even boys were working it!

And the winner is....

Her!

They made us all dance. Here's Brian shaking his money maker.

Launch at the pool.

There they are floating!

Urging my krathong to catch up.

They even dressed up the female teachers in traditional long Thai skirts for the occasion.

Takes 3 to put me together :)

Photo Bombed by a lil girl haha. Love it.

Holding a krathong.

They stuck a plant in my hair.

The night before the actual day, we had another krathong making party at our apartment. Teacher Emily came over and we all practiced what we learned. It wasn't hard to find the supplies at the local markets, though some of the prices were clearly inflated for visitors.

Making some krathongs!

On the actual day, We started off at Jomtien Beach for the festivities. There were alot of people out and about. Lots of lanterns being sent up and fireworks going off. I was a bit on edge. Too many fireworks flying around unguarded for my liking. Brian and Emily thought I was crazy... but I'm worst-case scenario. I can't help it! And I must say after watching fireworks being thrown into the streets under cars my thoughts were not unwarranted.

Fireworks!

All those specks are laterns going up!

More laterns!

Brian's other love in life - fire.

We met at our neighbors store/restaurant/bar for a pig roast she was putting on for the soi. The pork wasn't that bad, but the homemade potato salad was awesome!

I dunno what he's doing :)

Poor piggy. But you were delicious!!!

We decided we wanted to go to Pattaya Beach to witness the big send off, but finding parking down there wasn't easy. We raced back to Dongtan beach minutes before launch time, but it wasn't very happening either. At midnight exactly, we made it back to Jomtien Beach right across from our apartment... right back where we started. There wasn't a big send of like we thought after all. I guess I expected to see a sea full of krathongs, but now I know that was my own minds exaggeration. Perahps in the smaller canals in Bangkok you would have that effect. We also got the times wrong... haha.. We thought everyone launched the boats at midnight, but it was really around 8 p.m.