Loy Krathong, when Thailand celebrates love at the dividing line between water and land

You look forward to it all year long and suddenly, out of nowhere, it's that time again: it's Loy Krathong! A cheerful and colorful folk festival with a capital F that is infectious and great fun even without the partying, without the polonaise, crazy fancy dress parties and public drunkenness. No, just a happy gathering of casual people and entire families, around the water that is festively decorated for the occasion and the many creative, imaginative and colorful vessels that are launched at the height of the festival as the crowning achievement of perhaps the most beautiful festivities of the year.

So, let's party!

Day 1

First, to relegate a cliché to the realm of fables: not every South Limburger likes carnival. From my teenage years, I actually hated it terribly. Not for others, but for myself. I am of the religion 'live and let live' so I allow others their pleasure.

Only not if that pleasure is at the expense of my own well-being. I preferred to be in a sunny foreign country when the parades in the South started and the streets were teeming with more or less drunk and funny dressed partygoers who regularly lost track and wandered aimlessly in the hope of finding a point of reference on their criss-cross route. Too often, as a minor, I had to try to transport my friends or my brother home on my bike after a bout of carnivalesque binge drinking. That is quite a complex, tiring challenge that often resulted in having to get them into a taxi, after which I had to go on foot to pick up my bike, which I had left unattended in front of the pub door. Fortunately, it was a shabby wreck, for which no bike thief has ever shown any interest. Pay the taxi driver or from the purse of, in this specific case, my brother. After I had guided him through the front door, he apparently mistook the niche behind my parents' bedroom door for a toilet and gave the things parked there an alcoholic shower. In those years, there was no toilet upstairs. Only one next to the front door, so downstairs. My parents simply slept through the whole incident and only in the morning, through wet feet, suspected this somewhat untidy act. Fortunately, around carnival, the entire southern community is in higher spheres and cheerful, so no further harsh words were spoken. It became a kind of family saga that now, decades later, still occasionally rears its head at family parties to lighten the mood.

My youngest brother almost didn't survive an edition of the always cheerful folk festival. After an evening of soaking up culture in Maastricht, 30 km to the west, he and his equally intoxicated companion were attacked from behind by a group of local partygoers who, for no apparent reason, beat them up so relentlessly that our junior thought his last hour had come. Just before his lights finally went out, his friend managed to save him with a karate kick and the shocked duo were able to run towards the train station. They never knew why and by whom they were attacked. I saw my brother the day after the incident and can assure you that he looked quite 'shocked'. His face was unrecognizably swollen and black and blue. As if he had applied for the role of the Elephant Man. I could well imagine that he had already seen angels floating past his mind's eye that night. On the other hand, in the South, about nine months after Carnival, the birth rate always shot up measurably. So, in addition to hatred and violence, love was also not treated sparingly. Fortunately, DNA tests were not yet so popular, otherwise the already vulnerable society in the region would have been shaken up even more by various scandals.

Not that there are so many similarities between the Southern Netherlands drinking and adultery festival and the innocent Thai folk festival. As you may know, the carnival season starts every year on November 11 and just after recovering from that, the festivities around the launched non-motorized vessels break loose in Thailand.

On November 13th already with a foretaste around the village pond on the other side of the highway here. Very nice. No expense or effort has been spared to decorate the coastline with lots of colorful lights, streamers and balloons. The large stage is also not missing with the chairs with white covers on the best seats and the undressed version for the foot soldiers. There are a few other deviations from the regular weekly market: a dart tent, a shooting gallery and a fish tank, actually a converted children's swimming pool, from which one has to try to flip an exotic fish with a paper scoop net. The catch is then neatly packed in a plastic bag and given to the successful fisherman, facing an uncertain future. Most of the gill-gilled trophies will not reach the safe home port alive, or will disappear into the sewer in the few days after.

I did like the performance of the kathoeys. Slim boys with white faces in charming women's clothing. High heels to complete the picture, although the overall picture is still somewhat behind the shows we know from Pattaya, for example. The beautiful specimens are there and not in our village. Despite the enthusiasm, it seemed more like a parody of a transvestite show, but that will not have been the intention of the performance.

Nevertheless, nothing but appreciation from my side and if I were directly confronted with it, I would also have stated with a straight face that it was very nicely done. What do I gain by criticizing such a bunch of very nice young people with an identity crisis on such a cheerful day. Live and let live, is after all my credo. But no one else was interested in my opinion. We farangs can no longer look forward to any exclusivity here. If I had taken a seat in my ignorance in an armchair with a white cover, I would have been thrown out as quickly as a barefoot tramp in rags. Not that I wish to place myself above such an unfortunate creature. Just to illustrate my point.

Meanwhile, the orchestra played contemporary tunes from the old box with great enthusiasm. Missing a note here and there, it radiated such a great spontaneity that everyone automatically swung along to the festive sounds. My hips also pulled at my rigid frame, but I barely managed to defy them and so I stood there like a wooden Santa, sweating profusely and looking with great amazement at all that inevitable folklore around me.

I always find it remarkable how the Thai people know how to throw a party for and about anything and everything. Always with an unstoppable enthusiasm and sometimes with primitive means. In the center always the countless food stalls and for this occasion also those with the typical and also atypical boats that are launched by couples in love together at the height of the party and then steered away from the coast by means of manually created waves. The beginning of a long long journey over the now pitch-black water, with an uncertain destination. But that is precisely what makes it all so exciting. I was watching it like that, calmly sipping my Coke Zero, when a couple of other farangs showed up. Each clutching a can of Singha or Chang in their fists. Nice types, however, not the kind of expat that is sometimes displayed here when it is time to look down on others. Just a beer because it is so hot or because of the party. I already knew one of them, it was the delivery man from his own restaurant around the corner from us.

Really nice Brit, small and temporarily out of business due to the bad economic situation. The other three were unknown to me, but also friendly in themselves, albeit partly with a certain reserve. They soon realized that I am a tourist and not an expat. That makes a difference of course. Whether I also wanted to move eventually. I didn't know yet. It is very warm here. Squeezed between the food stalls like that, I didn't want to go into too much detail about the rather complex decision-making process for me regarding possible future immigration. Not here either. So we parted again, not as friends, but certainly not as enemies. And Frankie, the delivery man, would show up again when he was open for business again afterwards. His wife makes delicious fried rice, but fortunately you don't have to starve here if one food stall closes its doors.

Nothing was launched that evening. At least, not that I know of. Of course, all the necessary vessels were purchased. Most of them were edible for fish, which saves on cleaning up afterwards. And to be honest, they also look much nicer than the somewhat boring traditional boats made of bamboo and banana leaves, although those were also quite popular. In a few years, however, they will undoubtedly have completely cleared the liquid field in favor of the somewhat artificial-looking floating color spectacles, very creatively made of fish food.

Every time the power went out the party seemed to be over, but when the lights flickered back on amidst loud cheers, the party just continued. And after a large compressor was brought in even without further interruptions until the early hours, clearly audible up to our side of the highway. No problem for me; those who are tired just sleep through it.

Day 2

Yes, that was actually the same story, only in the turbo version, because in the big city. In fact, they had simply moved part of the usual walking street towards the lake to create that desirable connection with the water for Loy Krathong. In the preceding days, ribbons and notes had been carefully attached to trees and the ground to label the temporary commercial plots. Quite a job, but it also yields something. 400 baht per day per unit. Electricity was also provided, and included in the pitch, although the safety measures surrounding it would have led to the immediate suspension of all festivities in other countries. But that is the nice, the spontaneous thing about Thailand: when time comes, care comes and as long as it does not rain, nothing is wrong. Moreover, we only have 110 volts here. A pig has more than enough, but for the otherwise healthy person it is too bite-sized. Moreover, the pigs are already lying in pieces in soups or grilled waiting for their consumers and in that capacity have become immune to electrocution anyway. A slogan from my own eastern mining village spontaneously comes to mind: AKJ: alles kunt jot (everything will be fine). How much alike we are in essence.

A choice of the authorities that I applaud wholeheartedly is that of the Prohibition of the festival. Even if it is only for one day. Where at the village festival alcoholic drinks were still lavishly recruited, there was literally not one place in the city where the beer was available. Not even under the counter and not even outside the alcohol-free hours that have existed for ages. The roller shutters did not have to be lowered because there was nothing behind it anyway. So it became and remained one cozy family party, without any drunkenness-related skirmishes and afterwards everyone could enter the always dangerous battle with the busy traffic with a sober head on his or her shoulders, with a greater chance of survival than in the Songkran traffic that claims more and more lives every year. Especially of motorcyclists without helmets. Nothing of the kind with Loy Krathong. Congratulations Thailand and congratulations uninjured two-wheeler driver. Too bad for the turnover, but you can't have everything. Plus a living customer is a returning customer; a dead one is not. Basic knowledge of business administration.

In between the activities, the various floating lucky charms were launched. Here too, the difference between the people with large wallets and the common people was clearly visible. But it was nice that a small boat was already for sale from 20 baht. The Alibaba among the market traders. Floats only half a meter, but also costs nothing. In this way, everyone could take a disk or disk of the offered luck that evening, regardless of the investment in the nautical vessel. The large monsters that were mounted on a car tire naturally pushed some small ones under water here and there out of sight of the cameras, but this realistic reflection of the world on land did not spoil the fun.

The scenes at the waterfront were sometimes a bit scary, even ominous to look at. The lake is surrounded by hedges and walls and anyone who wants an elegant launch will have to join a set of stairs where you can reach the water just like a swimming pool. In the summer, that part serves as a landing place for canoes and rowing boats and also for the large yellow ducks that are the pets of Udon Thani. Dozens if not hundreds of 'sailors' would gather there to safely launch their vessels. I found it frightening. In the event of a panic, many people would fall into the water, flatten their boats and thus stamp their chance of happiness and love into the bottom of the shallow lake. From my point of view, the scene reminded me strongly of the excesses that take place in the Ganges River in faraway India; fortunately, here in Udon, no dear deceased were set on fire and then laid to rest half-charred in the (bath) water. Traditionally, they limited themselves to the ornate floating decorations costing anywhere from 20 baht to… many thousands perhaps, covered in gold leaf and diffusing incense from the most exclusive incense boutique, the Starbucks of incense sticks.

And so day 2 came to an end and I had inhaled enough Loy Krathong for this year. It had been nice, really nice and romantic too. My wife had bought a boat for 39 baht from a beautiful and creative saleswoman. Handmade and in the traditional style, with real orchids and a banana leaf hull. Small, beautiful, simple, rich in tradition. I had skipped the launch itself, actually felt a little ashamed of the size, however well-intentioned.

Towards the end of the ceremony I saw many unsold boats and other floating items on the shelves. What do you do with them afterwards? I suggested to my wife that the vendors should simply dump their leftovers over the edge of the pond to gain so much luck in one go that they could make a bigger profit from the popular festival next year. An indescribable look was given to me after this well-meant advice. Apparently I had not understood the spirit of Loy Krathong properly. The nuances had indeed escaped me. I simply wanted to be pragmatic.

And so Loy Krathong 2024 (plus 432 years before the Thai calendar) was over again. Boy, what a great party it had been. Always fun to experience. There is really no need to go on a ski holiday just before mid-November. Certainly not if the alcohol remains unsold behind the shutters that day.

About this blogger

khun Rick

Khun Rick dates from 1959 (currently 65 years old), grew up and still lives in South Limburg. After 40 years in the civil service, now almost 5 years with early retirement. Since 2001 he regularly visits Thailand as a tourist, but met his wife in the Netherlands and can often be found with her at his mother-in-law's in Udon Thani. Traveling together is his passion, eating (unfortunately) too and sports a necessity. And of course writing: used to be serious and now more light-hearted.

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