Chiang Mai Lantern Festival
Yes I took this photo and yes I am very proud
After getting back into Bangkok from Bali we had about 26 hours of turn around before heading out to Chiangmai for the Yi Ping/Loy Krathong lantern festivals. We also had 6 hours of class and a quiz that day. I think I’ve certainly had better ideas in my life than to have travel plans like that but whatever, it was necessary and well worth it. We took a night bus to Chiangmai which we nearly missed and arrived the next morning.
The Yi Ping and Loy Krathong festivals are a celebration of releasing your sins and also of thanking the water god for life. The two main components that aren’t monk, prayer, ceremony, etc. related are the releasing of the lanterns and the releasing of little floating boats made of plants and flowers into the river with little tea lights and incense in them. The lanterns vary in size and price depending on where you buy them and if you buy them in bulk.
The first day we just walked around Chiangmai and quickly found that its way more small town and boring than Bangkok (sorry not sorry). We did feed some pigeons though and that was a lot of fun. I had a good time and Ashley faced her fears and nearly cried but she did a good job and it was hilarious. I threw bird feed at her feet and they swarmed her. She got ice cream for facing her fears.
The second day was Friday which is when the actual lantern releasing started at 9pm on the Nawarat bridge. I went about 10 minutes before it started officially and the entire place was a mad house. There were people absolutely everywhere and the closer you got to the bridge, and once you were on the bridge, you couldn’t move. Also people started showing up earlier than I think was expected so there were cars and even a tour bus or two stuck on the bridge trying futility to get across and away. About an hour or two later they did eventually make it but I have absolutely no clue how. Police must have been involved because that crowd was not making way. People carried their little boats and their lanterns above their heads so to make sure they weren’t trampled by the crowd.
I was able to find Ashley and Jacey in the crowd by some sort of misplaced miracle after almost half an hour of wading across the bridge which they had had the good sense to make it to much earlier than me. Along the way I saw some of the chaos that was the beginning of this lantern festival. First off the bridge had sets of lights strung across lamp posts all along the bridge and secondly there was a breeze. And thirdly, in general, people are idiots. And I guess lastly there were a lot of trees around. Sending flying fire into the air is clearly only something that can happen in Chaingmai where you don’t have a thousand idiotic Americans trying to sue each other over damages… Anyway everything that you could expect to go wrong went wrong in those early minutes when people were trying to figure it out. The first brave souls, most of their lanterns ended up in the river or in the trees. I was convinced the trees were going to catch fire but all night they never did. A few things generally happened.
1. They didn’t give the lanterns enough time and the air inside wasn’t hot enough and they just sunk instead of floating
2. They were giving the lanterns enough time but a gust blew the tops sideways and they weren’t holding on to the tops well enough or at all and it blew into its own internal flame and caught on fire meaning they had to throw it over the bridge
3. They let them go but not close enough to the edge and they flew straight into the string of lights getting trapped, eventually catching themselves on fire, and then raining fire and metal frame down on the crowd which miraculously made enough space to not die
4. They hit a tree
There were a million ways these things could not work and on top of that it was impossibly crowded at the beginning making it even more difficult for people to do it well. After about an hour though things calmed down and the crowd thinned out and it was just fine. Jacey and I stuck it out for a few hours, Ashley hates crowds and went home. Jacey and I bought a lighter as well so we went around helping people out meaning that in all reality we got to light about 10-20 lanterns as well as meet people and make friends. We met a family from Pennsylvania, a lot of Germans, some nice girls from the east coast, and even an old dude wearing a U-dub shirt who was even and OSU alumni. That was pretty cool.
The lantern festival was so much fun and I loved the energy of people helping each out, sending wishes, getting excited for each other, the screaming from the flaming falling ones was even part of the lively atmosphere. I also enjoyed how many people from all over the world there were, we really met some characters. I helped this old German group take a video (they had the camera the wrong way and not on video) and the Pennsylvania group we met was religious and had actually moved to Chiangmai to combat human trafficking. That was cool except I think they needed a lot of eye opening before they could really do any good, they asked me what language the old Germans were speaking and I said German and the woman goes “oh I thought it was Spanish, they remind me of Mexicans” at which point our conversation pretty much ended haha. She was nice but that was one of the most closed minded, small world thing I’ve heard in a while and we mostly just laughed it off.
Chiangmai was a ton of fun and while it was a much smaller city than Bangkok it was still nice. Also the weather in the north was wonderful, not nearly as hot as Bangkok but still a very comfortably warm atmosphere. The last two days we did Chiang Rai and the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary which are separate posts to this one and the day we went home we were really dumb and made our return home flight depart at 4pm meaning we were pretty much bored all day because we had to leave the hostel at 12 and be at the airport by 2 meaning no day trips were possible… and we got home really late and had class the next day…. Again, I should be better at trip planning by now! Always leave in the morning!
I did really enjoy Chiangmai though and the old town is really beautiful. Its another location where Grabcab and Uber are only kind of free and the drivers ask you to sit in the front seat with them because then you could just be a “friend” because I think they get harassed by the real taxi drivers in the city. Its an interesting and emerging issue. A similar thing is happening with Airbnb where its technically legal but every business owner in a similar field hates it and you’re told to say you’re “staying with a friend” which is similar to sitting in the front seat.
Super yummy cute waffles I got at a bed and breakfast :)