The Lantern Festival

November 15^th, 2024 

Well, it’s the big day.  The primary reason that Naomi came back to Thailand for her fourth time, but for her first time to the north part of the country, was to attend in the Lantern Festival.  It became a bucket list item for her upon seeing it in an inflight magazine about 10 years ago…and now she’s finally realizing that dream.

 

We had a chill morning, she went for a massage while I did some laundry, followed by a late lunch at a cool spot that she had found called “The Happy Frog”.  It was a wonderful lunch, and one of the prettiest meals I’ve ever been served.

The Happy Frog! (and a scary one)

Cheers.

A present for Naomi's niece.

Look at that gorgeous lunch...it tasted as good as it looked!

It was less than a 10-minute walk from our hotel to the pickup point to be driven out to the festival, which was about 20 kilometres out of town, but on the opposite side of Chiang Mai from where we were.  We thought we were joining the end of the correct line but soon found out that there was another line we should be in.  After about 20 minutes, we got to a table under a temporary tent where we received a sticker on the back of our phones and were told that this would be needed for the return trip from the festival (which didn’t end up being the case).  The queue continued after the table, snaking through the parking lot where numerous truck taxis were arriving.  Once they loaded up 10-12 people, they headed out.

 

There was one Thai lady with a big sun hat on (oh yeah, the midafternoon sun was beating down hard on everyone) seemed to be organizing the line-up, making sure that it didn’t block the incoming and outgoing vehicles.  As we neared the start of the line-up, it all of the taxi trucks were gone, so things came to a standstill.  Soon a few more trucks arrived but as they slowed down and stopped, people who were not at the front of the queue were hopping in.  Chaos was slowly taking over with no one from the festival providing any order.  A few of us, including me, were calling out line jumpers.  There was a couple behind us who were also expressing their frustration.

 

Finally getting into the back of a taxi truck, that previously mentioned couple was sitting across from us, and we started to chat.  It turns out that Karen and Gary were from Oakville, Ontario, and Gary had graduated from the University of Waterloo three years before me.  They were on a five-week trip through Thailand and Vietnam and we had a nice conversation on the long ride to the venue.

En route to the festival.

The traffic getting out of the city was bad, as it was close to rush hour.  Looking at Naomi’s smartphone, I couldn’t understand the route that we took either.  We headed south out of the city before heading east and then northeast.  It seemed like a circuitous route.

 

Almost two hours later, we were finally dropped off at our destination, or at least we thought so.  As we approached the entrance, a lady behind a table told us that our tickets were for another venue.  What?!?  It seems as though we had been dropped us off at the wrong place.  The Thai woman was super helpful and told us that the man beside her was a taxi driver and would take us to the proper place, provided there were six of us.  He wanted 60 baht ($2.30) per person.  Gary, Karen, Naomi and I jumped at the offer but there was another group of younger travellers who balked at having to pay more money.  C’mon guys, it’s not much to pay and time’s a ticking.  Turns out that there was more than one red taxi truck who dropped festival goers at the incorrect spot and we quickly had two other people who wanted to join us.  Sorry young dudes…you snooze, you lose.  We paid our money and hopped in a nice tourist van for a twenty-minute ride to the proper place.  There was a bit of joking that we were now experiencing the premium or VIP service as this vehicle was a much more comfortable ride.

The wrong venue...

Arriving at the proper location, we were pleasantly surprised that there was no line-up at the entrance, but that was mainly due to the fact that we were late arriving.  Once we received our lanyards with our tickets attached to them, we started to wander around the grounds, trying to get our bearings and the signage was minimal.  We decided to hang out with Gary and Karen as they were a lovely and friendly couple.

Okay, now we're at the right place.

A short fireworks display caught our attention before we walked across a small bridge that was covered by a tunnel of colourful lanterns…it was a cool way to enter the main area of the event.

Opening fireworks:

I could have turned this video the right way...but I think this looks cool like this.

A lady lighting a big lantern near the entrance.  This was much bigger than the ones we had.

The grounds were beautifully lit up.

Got our lanyards with our tickets...ready to go.

The lantern tunnel/bridge entrance.

With our new friends Karen and Gary.

So many pretty colours.

Some dancers on stages...we just walked by, heading towards the food area as it was getting close to show time.

A Thai tradition is to set small floating bouquets of flowers with a candle on them, called a krathong.

Ready to set out krathongs in the water.

Setting my krathong on the water:

Gorgeous...a lot of effort was put into making them.

A dinner was included with the event so the four of us wandered over to the “Standard” eating zone, which was the type of ticket we had purchased.  There were stalls on either side of the rectangular area with many short tables and pillows on the ground.  This is the traditional way that Thais eat but we couldn’t help but remark, with all of us being Westerners, that the Premium and VIP areas had proper tables and chairs.  Above each stall, was a sign showing what food they served, or more appropriately at this time, what they had been serving.  It seemed that we were some of the last of the 4000 attendees to be served a meal.  

The "Standard" eating area.  The "Premium" and "VIP" sections had actual chairs!

Once again, we found ourselves in a long lineup.  As we moved nearer to the stall that was still active, we could see that it looked like Pad Thai noodles being dished up.  Naomi remarked that it felt like we were inmates in a penitentiary receiving our dinner which was being slopped onto a plate.  The lady was scooping huge portions onto each dish but as we got even closer, we saw that the big bowl of noodles had run out.  She received some more food from another food station behind her, but it was noticeable that she was now giving out smaller portions, so it seemed like the prospect of them running out of food was real.  The four of us received the last bit of sustenance from her big bowl, and although it was not a full meal, at least it was something.

The portions got noticeably smaller by the time we got to the front of the line.

Well, it will fill a gap.

We weren't letting the trials and tribulations get to us...

Next, it was time to head over to the main stupa which was ringed by rows and rows of chairs.  We made a plan to meet up with Gary and Karen after the show in order to light our lanterns together.  Little did we know, after the entertainment, we would be lighting our lanterns from where we were sitting.

The pretty dancers ready for action.

The show began with an introduction, conveyed in numerous languages such as Thai, English, Mandarin and Japanese, by some performers around the stupa.  Next, some drummers took to the stage and began to beat these big drums…or at least that’s what it looked like.  Their big drumsticks had tassels hanging off of them and they weren’t actually banging the drums.  Later, Karen remarked that it looked like they were just “dusting” them.  There were also towers around the perimeter of the venue with drummers holding proper drumsticks, but they also weren’t actually playing…it was all “Air Drumming”.  Huh?!?  So far this whole event has been a bit frustrating and disappointing…

The audience was seated in chairs in concentric rings around the stupa.

The "air drumming":

Some Thai dancers in colourful dresses came down the aisles that ran radially towards the stage.  Perhaps it was a traditional dance that were performing, but I couldn’t help but remark to Naomi that even I could have done the moves that they were doing.

To wrap up the 20-30 minutes of entertainment, four pairs of performers, on each side of the stupa, showed how to properly light a lantern as a man narrated over the speakers.  Holding the lantern over an open flame, if done incorrectly, can light them on fire as they are made of rice paper.  So, while holding up the top of the lantern as high as possible, you try to light a toroidal piece of wax that is suspended by stiff wire at the bottom centre of the lantern.  As the hot air fills the lantern, just like a hot air balloon, you can let go of the top and just hold onto the round metal frame at the bottom.  You wait at least 2-3 minutes before the air is hot enough to send the whole contraption into the air.

The demonstration of releasing the lanterns:

The start of the release of lanterns.

Each festival attendee had two lanterns tied to their chair.  Small bottles with kerosene with a wick sticking out of the top were staked into the ground every five seats or so.  Event workers walked around, lighting the candles.  Initially, we watched others trying to light their lanterns as we waited for our bottle to be ignited.  Across the aisle, just 15 feet away from us, we watched as a lantern caught on fire, was tossed to the ground, and madly stomped on by a few people.  Yikes, this could be a shit show!  It wasn’t the only one we saw light up in flames and there were some staff circulating around with small extinguisher bottles filled with water, putting out the odd mini-fire.

Not all lanterns made it into the sky...

Lanterns started to majestically ascend into the night sky and what a spectacle it was!  Both Naomi and I were gobsmacked.  It was utterly sensational.  I now understood why Naomi wanted to come and experience this festival, and I was glad I joined her.

 

Our wick was finally lit and we took our first attempt at lighting one of our four lanterns.  It was quite a process, but we are happy to report that we didn’t have a “flame-up” with any of them.  We took turns doing the final release of the lantern into the sky…which by this time, looked like a whole new galaxy had just been born.

Getting our first one ready.

Working on our first one...it was slightly tricky business.

You got it Naomi!

Looking good...

Releasing our first one:

Naomi releasing a lantern:

Occasionally an unlit lantern, or one that had caught on fire, would descend back down towards the crowd.  A staff member with a laser pointer would shine his green light onto the falling debris to try and bring awareness to it.

Awww...

There was not much wind that night, so the lanterns ascended quite high, but then once the wick had burned out, they slowly came back down within a kilometer or so of the event.  They were like little faint, white, rectangular ghosts floating down in the full moon light.

Naomi releasing her second one:

When you wish upon a star...or a few thousand lanterns.

What a spectacle!

So magical.

Pondering life...

A once in lifetime experience.

It was like a new galaxy had appeared in the sky.

On that matter, it cannot be ignored that this is not exactly an environmentally friendly event.  Granted, most of the lantern is rice paper, but there is still the metal ring and the burning of a lot of wax.  The event has to be held at least 10 kilometres from the Chiang Mai airport, so that gives a good indication that these lanterns do not travel a long distance.  That being said, at this event, one of a few in the area, but the biggest one, is releasing 8000 lanterns into the sky.  I wouldn’t want to be a landowner in the vicinity.  I hope that some of the money from our relatively expensive tickets ($170/each), goes towards a clean up effort in the days after the event.

The fireworks joined in near the end.

We had launched our four lanterns and yet for another 20 plus minutes, lanterns were still lifting into the air.  As the stream of floating lamps dwindled, some fireworks were set off for a nice finale.  We met up with Gary and Karen and slowly made our way towards the exit.  With the shenanigans that occurred to arrive at the event, I think all of us were a bit concerned about how long it might take to get a ride back into the city…I know I was.

Just outside the gates, a bunch of the red truck taxis were in a grassy parking lot.  We joined one lineup, and I decided that I would scout it out and check that we were in fact in the correct queue, having learned from our experiences earlier.  At the front of the line, I found out that this one was for some company called NIS, and it was just for Japanese guests.  Okay, I was glad I checked as we would have wasted a lot of time there.  We walked further into the field, and I saw a truck pulling away with some Caucasians in it.  I asked them where they had found the ride.  The response was that they had just found an empty truck and hopped in it.  We decided to try the same and within a couple of minutes, Gary asked a man by an empty taxi at the back of the field whether we could get a ride and amazingly he said yes!  Sweet.

 

The ride back was much shorter as the traffic wasn’t as bad and by 11 pm, we were dropped off at the mall where we had gone to the movies the day before, which was a short walk to our hotel.  We said goodbye to Gary and Karen and headed home, tired but content.

 

In the end the whole event took 8 hours, most of which was waiting in lines, in a taxi or just being generally frustrated…all for 45 minutes of absolute magic.  It was a once in a lifetime experience…and totally worth it!!!