The rocket festival in Isan

Although the Thai does not really differ much from the Dutch, you sometimes experience something in Thailand that you will not easily experience in the Netherlands.

The Rocket Festival

At the beginning of the rainy season in Isaan, the local population makes rockets that fly several kilometers into the air, which used to be bamboo filled with gunpowder and nowadays PVC pipes about four meters long and with a diameter of more than a decimetre.

The airspace will therefore be closed to air traffic locally, although aircraft flying at an altitude of 10.000 meters will be allowed to pass. The most famous rocket festival is in Yasothon, but that also happens in our village. Every resident is assessed a fixed amount for this, including us.

Sometimes, of course, accidents happen when they already explode on the ground. And what goes up, also goes down. One such projectile has crashed into our pond.

The day before the launches, my wife had already gone to see because parades are held that day. The next day I went alone. It was only after I had left that my wife realized that she had forgotten to warn me of an old local custom, namely that if a launch fails, someone must be found to be the culprit. And just like in the Netherlands, the blame is of course not sought at yourself. A more or less random victim is selected and unceremoniously dumped into a quagmire. Because my wife couldn't call me (I didn't have a mobile yet) she called a friend and she sent her husband to me. It naturally looked for me near the possible scene of the disaster and of course something went wrong at that moment during a launch. So he ended up in that mud puddle.

Luckily I had kept a safe distance and didn't hear it until I got home…