This time of the year is the Thai Loy Kratong festival. This year, i didn't really have much planned, but ended up at my neighbours place a few nights making kratongs. Not that i made the same design at their house, but maybe the practice helped a bit as somehow, i managed to come 'second' in the school kratong making competition yesterday, which i find highly amusing.
me and my kratong
It's been cool spending a bit more time with the neighbours, playing with fireworks (brings back lots of cool childhood memories), trying to launch a kom fai (floating lantern) only to have it catch on fire and burn up. Apparently according to buddhist beliefs, me having burnt my kom fai means that i'd have bad luck for the next year. I actually thought it was pretty funny, and even had a chance to chat to the neighbours a bit about religious beliefs. Some of them seem pretty keen to get me to become a buddhist when i return after going to bible college. But going to loy kratong with them was actually really insightful in seeing how buddhists here actually see the festival as well, as last year i just went as a tourist.
Anyway, here are a few other recent random photos of the past few days:
Loy Kratong at the school
launching kom loys with the neighours
the remains of the kom loy that i tried to launch
on a tiaw up the mountain
decked out to head into the cave at san kampang
the typical 'jump' photo
using kim as the donger
fun times at the church camp
