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Loy Krathong is a very popular festival, in which people gain good luck by launching ("loy," to float) a banana-leaf boat with flowers and a candle (their "krathong") onto a nearby river, lake, or pond. This event takes place on the night of the full moon in November (this year, Nov.24). Some krathongs are quite elaborate. Everyone has great fun doing this, with plenty of beer and local Thai whiskey being consumed in the process as well.
We reserved a riverfront table at a Thai restaurant (Le La Wa Dee) on the Kok River in Chiang Rai. Very lively setting, to be sure. Joining us where Mr. & Mrs. Lee/ He is David's student from Korea, a former electronics company CEO in his early 60's who retired and moved to Thailand for his health about a year ago; Mrs. Lee is studying Thai every day, and is getting quite fluent in it (lucky for us, since she speaks very little English. So our conversations are in a flowing mix of Thai (for David & Mrs. Lee), English (for Janet and Mr. Lee and David), and Korean (for the Lees). We had a great time with the crowds at the restaurant, as shown by the photos above.
"Kom Loy" are a new treat, one introduced since David lived here in the 1960s. These are large (3' tall, 18" wide) white paper cylinders with a gasoline-soaked device in their bottom center. A couple of people hold it up and light the fuel. Heat from the flames eventually is enough to make the gadget float up steadily to a very great height (perhaps several hundred feet up). For days before and during the Loy Krathong festivities we saw them all over the night sky, sometimes as many as 20 at a time.
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