Two nights go, I went to see Luang Probang's main celebration of the year, the festival of lights, which is the celebration of the end of the monsoon season. It is truly an amazing experience and the whole town comes out. The main event is a parade down the main street of all the families and surrounding a huge variety of home made river boats made from bamboo and colorful paper.
The boats look skeleton like and as though they could tip over in the water. That is because they use bamboo rafts to float them in the water. The boats can range in size from pillow length to truck length. They are covered in colorful tissue paper and have candles all over them. They proceed down the main street towards the Mekong river. Up to this point they were carried on wheeled carts but then they are transferred down a steep long flight of steps to the river. Once at the water the families ease their boats in and set them on the bamboo rafts. These boats do not have a motor and so another small vessel, like a long tail river canoe, maneuvers the boat into the current.
Many people from the town drop small offerings which are essentially wax cake shaped objects covered with flowers and banana leaves into the river. Also on them are candles and sticks of incense that people will light before they float away. Gradually there are hundreds floating past you at any given time. Since it is very dark, all you see is a beautiful stream of specs of light floating down the river.
At the same time as the boats are set off, another popular activity for the locals (and tourists) is to send floating lanterns into the sky. These lanterns are light weight paper bags with waxed cardboard rings on a little wire frame at the bottom of the bat. When you light the cardboard the flame creates enough hot air to lift the bags off the ground. The bags are fairly large, about three feet high. These bags can reach a height of several thousand feet before the flame runs out of fuel. At the beginning of the evening there were only a couple of lanterns, but as time went by more and more went up until the sky was filled with different colored lights floating above. Just for fun, we lit two of these lanterns as well and added to the festival from our backyard.
We were very lucky to witness this one night after a lunar eclipse. This festival happens only once a year.
The boats look skeleton like and as though they could tip over in the water. That is because they use bamboo rafts to float them in the water. The boats can range in size from pillow length to truck length. They are covered in colorful tissue paper and have candles all over them. They proceed down the main street towards the Mekong river. Up to this point they were carried on wheeled carts but then they are transferred down a steep long flight of steps to the river. Once at the water the families ease their boats in and set them on the bamboo rafts. These boats do not have a motor and so another small vessel, like a long tail river canoe, maneuvers the boat into the current.
Here is only one of the many boats.
Many people from the town drop small offerings which are essentially wax cake shaped objects covered with flowers and banana leaves into the river. Also on them are candles and sticks of incense that people will light before they float away. Gradually there are hundreds floating past you at any given time. Since it is very dark, all you see is a beautiful stream of specs of light floating down the river.
At the same time as the boats are set off, another popular activity for the locals (and tourists) is to send floating lanterns into the sky. These lanterns are light weight paper bags with waxed cardboard rings on a little wire frame at the bottom of the bat. When you light the cardboard the flame creates enough hot air to lift the bags off the ground. The bags are fairly large, about three feet high. These bags can reach a height of several thousand feet before the flame runs out of fuel. At the beginning of the evening there were only a couple of lanterns, but as time went by more and more went up until the sky was filled with different colored lights floating above. Just for fun, we lit two of these lanterns as well and added to the festival from our backyard.
We were very lucky to witness this one night after a lunar eclipse. This festival happens only once a year.
Some lanterns made by monks (these do not fly)
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