Loi Krathong, Thailand

Krathongs made from coloured ice cream cornets


Loi Krathong, Chiang Mai 2009

Loi Krathong is one of Thailand's major annual festivals and a must do for anyone visiting the country in the autumn. The festival is a celebration of water through light, thanking water for the fertility it provides and apologising for pollution we cause by sending small floats of plants and flowers with incense and candles into rivers and other waterways. The Thai for the floats is krathong and to loi is to float them on their way. Millions of Thais throughout the country make or buy krathongs then gather at specific locations in each city, town or village that have traditionally been used for centuries to loi their krathongs. The candles seem to go out quite quickly and darkened krathongs tend to gather along the water's edge, so anyone expecting to see rivers sparkling with lights may be disappointed unless the weather is totally calm. Think giant vegetable soup with too many cooks. Households light candles at their boundaries and entrances, in many ways similar to Hindu diwali.


Kom Loi about to be released

Where the festival is so enjoyable is because it s an almighty excuse for Thais to do what they love best - eating, shopping, having fun and listening to loud music. Food and gift stalls line the streets, performances are held and processions of motorised krathongs head down streets. It is as much a celebration of modern Thai life as it is one of tradition. The best way to experience it is to throw yourself right in, while keeping out of the water. You might also need to keep your head down from the odd stray firework or quickly descending kom loi, a miniature candle-powered hot air balloon that are set floating in the sky in droves. Many have wishes attached to them. Not all manage to ascend to the heavens before they reach a tree or power cables or simply lose their upward momentum above a crowd.



The festival is not the same date every year according to the Gregorian calender because it is fixed to the 13 month lunar calendar, falling on the full moon of the 12th month. Wherever you are in Thailand at the time of Loi Krathong you will undoubtedly enjoy. I have met farang women staying in villages who have been dressed as Thai women and put on the top of krathongs in processions. Three of my favourite places to loi a krathong are Chiang Mai, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya.


Tha Phrae gate, Chiang Mai

People in Chiang Mai know how to enjoy life and bring this zest for fun to Loi Krathong over 4 days or so. Each night activity is focused around the Tha Phrae Gate and Narawat Bridge on the Ping River. Where Tha Phae gate is a laidback market full of teanagers comically posing for photos below lanterns, the River is a cacophony of noise and sound resounding to fireworks carronading from the bridge. Call into a wat on the route to the river to sign a kom loi with a wish and float it away with the help of young monks. A procession that begins at the gate converges on the river on the night of Loi Krathong itself.


Buddhist Loi Krathong ceremony, Chiang Rai


Sukhothai Historical Park

Where Loi Krathong in Chiang Mai is one great street party, in Sukhothai it is the creation of a magical, twinkling world of light and dark over four evenings. The World Heritage Historical Park is taken over with thousands of candles and lanterns on the chedis and in the ponds. A sound and light show animates Wat Mahathat with colourful lights and loud noises culminating in a firework display. The road to the park and the lanes in the park are lined with food and gift stalls.

Picnics below the lights in Sukhothai


Buddhas for sale in a Loi Krathong market

Ayutthaya may be a World Heritage Historical Park similar to Sukhothai but Loi Krathong is totally different. Here it is a brash six-day fairground and festival featuring lots of loud dance music, dodgems, shows and sound stages of boy bands. This action is concentrated in one corner near Wat Mahathat but the main loi locations are on the Chao Praya river near Wat Yai Chai Mongkol. Plenty of people loi on the ponds of the historical park too and boys tread water to either help the krathongs away from the banks or to salvage and resell them later.


Kom Loi gang

Offering to a Prang

Offering to a Prang
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

As you wander around Ayutthaya you come across these offerings to Buddha in different ancient temples. Each is a little reminder that the faith that built these magnificent temples still holds them sacred.

Chedi-Chedi, Prang-Prang

Navigating ancient Ayutthaya, the Venice of the East


Wat Si Sanphet

The diminutive Thai security guard approached me out of the gathering gloom of dusk, the spotlight casting his giant shadow against the illuminated chedi. We close now he politely said, beckoning me towards the exit. It was sadly time to drag myself away from the magical temple courtyard of Buddha statues, broken columns, white-flowering trees, bell-shaped chedis and towering prangs all brightly lit in yellows, oranges and greens. I had just taken my last photograph of the row of three graceful chedis of Phra Si Sanphet, each topped with spires of ever-diminishing discs, that glowed against the now-black sky. The tour parties had long departed; leaving me to watch the sunset paint the sky red behind the technicolour temples in tranquil solitude. I reluctantly headed for the exit, taking one last glance over my shoulder at the multicoloured wonderland before cycling back to my hotel through the historical parkland.


Wat Si Sanphet Sunset

Ayutthaya was founded 700 years ago on an island formed by the confluence of three fast-flowing rivers as the second great royal capital of Siam. Completely encircled by the rivers and criss-crossed with canals, it was aptly dubbed the Venice of the East by the first European explorers to set their eyes on the city in the 1500s. The city was a metropolis capital, religious centre and trading port. Ships regularly visited its riverside wharves from Europe, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, India, Persia, Arabia and China while Siamese ships sailed in the opposite directions across the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. The great Chinese naval captain Zheng visited Ayutthaya in 1407 and made a benefaction to the nearest temple to the portside warehouses. Foreign trading communities lived in specially designated residential quarters where they were allowed to govern themselves and follow their own religions. Ayutthaya flourished for 400 years until sacked by the Burmese army in 1767.


Wat Phra Ram with lotus flowers

The Buddhist Kings of Siam built monumentally beautiful temples, known as wats, to honour their departed fathers. The Burmese destroyed much, decapitating most of the Buddha statues, but the main temple structures survived the flames and hammers. Most of the temples and palaces that remain today are preserved in an historical park of fragrant trees, lotus-filled canals and white-painted bridges that occupies much of the western half of the island. Modern Ayutthaya takes up the remaining half, its streets following the same grid pattern followed by the canals. The city lies on the flat floodplain about an hour and a half drive north of Bangkok.


Buddha head at Wat Matathat

The very centre of the Siamese Kingdom was found under the prang of Wat Matathat, a type of temple that lay at the heart of every major Siamese city and under which lay buried a relic of Buddha. Following archaeological excavations in 1956, the relic has been on display in one of the city museums. Matathat is notable for a fallen Buddha head that has been taken up by the twisted roots of a banyan, a Buddhist holy tree. This growing together of nature and art is seen as very auspicious by Thais and it is sometimes decorated with cloth and offerings to request merit from the Buddha.


Nagas and Garuda of Wat Rathchaburana

Next door to Matathat is Wat Ratchaburana which has the best surviving prang in Ayutthaya rising above the trees. Each temple is laid out as a square and aligned on the compass points. The prang is in the very centre and represents Mount Meru, the holy mountain of the Buddhist heaven. Chedis surround the prang, each representing a cosmic plane. Chedis at the four corners stand for the four human universes of physical being. Ratchaburana’s prang still preserves the stucco relief statues of garudas, nagas and other mythical beasts. Robbers unfortunately dug below the prang and made off with a treasure of royal gold but thankfully two of them were caught and some of the gold objects saved.


Wat Phra Ram sunrise

Across the park, the prang of Wat Phra Ram is reflected in the surrounding canals, and best seen at sunrise or sunset. Next to it is Wat Phra Si Sanphet with its line of three chedis. This was the temple of the Siamese royal family and the adjacent remains of the extensive palace lie in manicured lawns.


Flowers for a King

These four wats comprise the core of ancient Ayutthaya and are easily visited on foot or by bicycle through the historical park. They all become magical lanterns towering into the night sky when the spotlights are turned on at sunset.


Wat Phanan Choeng

Other ruined chedis and walls pop up on the roadside throughout the modern city. Further away and off the island are three major riverside temples. Wat Phanan Choeng, the temple associated with Zheng He, is to the east of the island. Very much an active working temple, it is bustling with devotees praying in the halls decorated with Chinese script and dragons.


Wat Yai Buddhas doing here?

It is a short distance to the delightful garden temple of Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, which is again busy with devotees. Hundreds of Buddha status, each draped on orange sashes, line the four walls of the central courtyard and gaze down impassively in front of the central chedi. Climb up into the chedi and you find seven Buddhas covered in gold leaf and set in niches. Thais come to speak merit requests into small pieces of paper, wipe them on the Buddhas then cast them in to baskets. Gardens of flowering trees and shrubs extend outside the courtyard and make a suitable environment for a giant sculpture of a reclining Buddha to enjoy dappled shade.


Wat Chai Wattanaram

To the west of the island is Wat Chai Wattanaram, which has more chedis surviving around the central prang than any other temple. Visit in the late afternoon to enjoy the breathtaking sunset then stay to watch it also come alight after dark. Two rarely-visited temples to the west of the island contain an ornate Ayutthaya-style Buddha-as-King statue and the only Burmese temple architecture in the city. These off-island temples can be visited by the more adventurous on bicycle, and Thai drivers tend to be relatively considerate, or by Sawngthaew, the small three-wheeled open-sided taxis that buzz around the roads.


One Chedi of three at Wat Si Sanphet

You can visit all the temples independently, which are open from 7.30am to 6.30pm for an entry fee of 20 to 30 baht at each, or join one of the many tours that take you around all of the main wats in one day or the five illuminated wats at night. Most people spend one hot day or an overnight afternoon/morning visiting the temples. But, if you have more time, slow down to take in only two or three temples a day, wander through the historical park and make sure you visit the Historical Study Centre and the Museum to see the gold objects and Buddha relic excavated from below the prangs of Wats Matathat and Ratchaburana.


Golden Buddha

The temples are best seen in early morning and late afternoon when the wats take on an orange hue and their architecture is picked out by the shadows of the low sun. Make sure you stay later at Chai Wattarama or Si Sanphet to savour the vibrant colours when sunset mixes with the illuminated wats. That is the time when the colourful magic visits and you won’t want to return to the black and white world outside.


Reflections on a Wat

Poolside in Ayutthaya

Poolside in Ayutthaya
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

What better place to stay when in hot Ayutthaya then a guesthouse with a pool? It is unusual to say the least to find a backpacker-priced guesthouse with a pool.

We found a couple in big, old colonial courtyard houses in Nicaragua but they were both owned by the same people who had installed what amounted to little more than puddles as part of the backpacker luxury package. Very welcome they were too.

The Ayutthaya pool is much bigger, maybe 10 metres in length, and a one-off in town. It is part of the Sherwood Inn, on one of the roads close to the Ayutthaya ancient ruins. Its very presence epitomises the attitude of the guesthouse manager of providing good, friendly service at a budget price. A double room wil set you back just 280 baht, or 5.50 GB pounds before the exchange rate worsens due to the sinking pound.

Not only is there a pool that is long enough to swim lengths, pleasantly short lengths that is, but there is also plenty of space for yoga, reading and enjoying meals from the great kitchenv Add in a poolside balcony, that has almost become Georgia's private workspace as she completes an editorial contract, and the presence of only five rooms and the Sherwood makes for a very relaxing base to explore the ruins.