Just as there are many holidays that are celebrated exclusively in America, there are holidays that Thailand goes all out for. Some of that is tradition, some of that is their culture, and some of it is to attract tourists. Whatever the reason, we get to enjoy a few more holidays throughout the year. Now, we are not worshiping the River Goddess like the Thai people, but we can still enjoy the fun and games surrounding these holidays.

There are mainly two holidays that foreigners take part in here in Chiang Mai. Songkran, which is the world’s largest water festival (when Chiang Mai becomes the Water Fight Capital of the World), and Loi Grathong (one of the world’s largest Lantern Festivals). It isn’t considered the biggest lantern festival in the world, mainly because China far surpasses the population in Thailand, and some of the countries like Japan and South Korea get a little more tourism than Northern Thailand, but this festival is huge.

Chiang Mai was the capital of the Loi Grathong holiday, but the advance of modern technology and airplanes slowly hindered them until the government had to limit the flying of lanterns to only a few places. Every year, the airports have to cancel literally hundreds of flights because of the danger of lanterns getting caught in plane engines. As far as I know, it hasn’t happened yet but it is a reasonable concern. So, the new “capital” of Loi Grathong is Doi Saket: the small town that our family has been calling home for the last year. It is super cool that we get to live in the capitals of two large and fun holidays. Where we come from in Nebraska, our town is the Haydays capital (which is a holiday we made up). The neighboring town of O’Neill is the St. Patrick’s capital and another neighboring town, Stuart, appointed itself in-charge of the 4th of July. These “local holidays” are cool and I always enjoyed them, but they are not nearly as big as the holidays here in Thailand!

I was fortunate this year to have my golden birthday on ลอยกระทง (Loi Grathong). For my birthday, we went downtown to my favorite breakfast place in Chiang Mai, Butter is Better, and had a nice big breakfast. Then we picked up an ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen (a birthday tradition we have started here in Thailand) and went back home to open presents. My gifts mostly comprised of sodas and candy (what I asked for). That evening there was a Chiang Mai Youth Campfire Cookout. The Cookout was a gathering of all the youth groups in Chiang Mai. We got together for hot-dogs and s’mores, a small worship service, and in- the-dark games. This year, the main game was Capture the Flag. It was fun, but I intentionally kept the fact it was my birthday a secret. As you can see below….

I love it when people sing happy birthday to me. There was no way I was going to have literally hundreds of kids singing Happy Birthday to me. No way. I specifically told Selah and Jeremiah that if they said anything about it being my birthday to anyone, I would be personally responsible for their sudden, unexpected death.

Anyway, after the cookout our parents picked us up and took us to that lake where they were setting off all the floating lanterns. They had bought some and we sent them off ourselves.

This was super cool! It felt like we were signaling for Rapunzel to come home. Apparently, Rapunzel and I share a birthday. There were lanterns everywhere. The one thing that almost ruined it was how crazy it was. Now, I am an introvert who likes peace and quiet. Some of the people at the lake, though, were crazy, insane, maybe drunk, pyromaniacs. People were constantly shooting off fireworks, and some wayward lanterns got very close to other people. There was even some guy meant to send fireworks blazing into the air from the shore of the lake next to us. He didn’t aim right however and shot a firework straight into the ground next to us! Fiery clumps of dirt flew everywhere including my hair, though it didn’t light my hair ablaze. There was even a friend of mine there who came up behind me, lit a small bomb in front of my face and threw it at the ground near my feet where it sparked and fizzed madly. I did not like it. Not one bit. I am not scared of fire, but more people die from fireworks than sharks, so there is reason to be aware.

Why do they send of flying lanterns? Well, traditionally, they use them to send prayers and wishes to the spirits. It is also supposed to bring good luck. Nowadays, it seems to me they are mostly used to pull in tourists.

Flying lanterns aren’t the only lanterns set off here, though. There are floating lanterns that float in the air called Khom Loi or Khom Fai (Fai means Fire). Then, there are floating lanterns that float in water.

These things are cool. Our Thai teacher taught us how to make them last year. But, this year she is opening a new school near her brother’s Thai school so they held a Loi Grathong event together at the Pantip Plaza. Khruu Em (our teacher) has only been teaching out of her house until now so she doesn’t have as many students as her brother who has a school and multiple other teachers working with him. In fact, we might have been the only ones from Eden School.

Anyway, we made our Grathongs. First, they cut the stalks of banana trees into thick circles which becomes our base. Secondly, we use small nails and staples to stick cut banana leaves onto our circles. Then, they taught us how to fold our banana leaves in cool triangular “petals.” There are many different ways to fold the leaves to make different shapes, but they really just focused on the simple ways because it was a whole bunch of Farangs (foreigners).

After we made them however we wanted, we would cover them with bright flowers such as marigolds and orchids. Then we had lunch. Khruu Rutchira made a whole bunch of amazing Thai dishes. She made พัดซีอิ๊ว (Pad See Ew), Pink Noodles (I don’t know what they are called or even how they are pink but it’s really good), ส้มตำ (Som Tam), she also ordered these amazing curry puffs with either peanut curry or chicken curry. She also had a whole bunch of sweet floral teas. For those who don’t know, (most of you), พัดซีอิ๊ว (Pad See Ew) is a Thai dish that is comprised of soy sauce, vegetables, your choice of meat (I think it was chicken), and these large flat rice noodles which look really weird and have an odd texture (but I like it). It is one of Tallulah’s favorite Thai dishes. If you don’t know what ส้มตำ (Som Tam) is, then I know you don’t read all my posts. If you want to know what it is, click here.

Before lunch and the making of Grathongs (floating lanterns), they gave us a little history lesson. The practice of Loi Grathong started in the 14th century. The main religion of Thailand is Buddhism. 90-95% of the population is Buddhist and the rest of population is muslim or smaller less known religions. Christians only make about 1% of the population. Though most of the Christians live in northern parts of Thailand like Chiang Mai, Christians only take up around 16% of the population in the city. The small villages like the one I went to in Doi Chang or Doi Inthanon make up most of the Christian population.

Anyway, while Thailand is a Buddhist country, the Buddhism in Thailand also shows heavy influences from Hindu and other religions like that. One thing the Thai people took from the Hindu religion is the worship of the River Goddess, KhongKha (คงคา), which is their name for the Hindu River Goddess, Ganga.

Now, the rivers in Northern Thailand such as the Ping River that flows through Chiang Mai are disgusting. They are muddy brown and smelly and filled with trash. Thailand’s “solution” to the problem is to make Grathongs. The floating lanterns are beautiful and fragrant, especially if you add the traditional joss stick or incense candles to them. The making of Grathongs is representing repentance and the asking of forgiveness for dirtying up the rivers. The Buddhists take this very seriously, though as Christians we can’t help to wonder why they think vessels full of nails and staples and candles would help clean the water. Whatever.

At first the lanterns were made very simply and carefully, but over time, professionals figured out how to make them real works of art. It is very similar to how Americans make jack-o-lanterns. Some people take them way too seriously and some just accidentally make the most beautiful things without any effort. I am not one of those people. I am terrible at making jack-o-lanterns and Grathongs. However bad I am at making them, they are both still fun to make, though they both make a big mess. Jack-o-lanterns make a mess with their guts and Grathongs make a mess with banana leave scraps.

During Loi Grathong, they also have large parades with huge elaborate floats covered in lights and decorations. Khruu Em showed us pictures and asked if we were going to go and we said probably not but asked if her daughter Marin got a lot of candy. That made her confused. Apparently, it is mainly an American tradition to throw candy off of floats in a Parade! I thought that was just a given of parades but she had never heard of it before. I thought that was interesting.

Loi Grathong was a super cool way to spend my golden birthday and it it was a once in a lifetime experience that we have gotten to experience TWICE. It just shows that doing what God calls us to do can be rewarding. The experiences we have had since coming here are pretty amazing and we are blessed to be able to enjoy these things about Thailand while living here!