Sawadee ka everyone,
For the last 3 days we have been celebrating Loy Kratong here in Thailand. It is an awesome thing to see in person. On Wednesday night we went up to the temple at Mae Jo University to celebrate Yee Ping. This is were they start off with a lot of festive dancing in beautiful costumes, then release 1000 + lanterns into the sky at once.
We hadn't bought tickets ahead of time so we bought them at the gate. Lucky for us, a tour bus was unloading just as we arrived so we were herded into their group. We ended up getting served a full dinner, given a traditional scarf to wear, & front row seats to the dancing & chanting.
After we had finished eating & were heading to the cermony grounds it started to rain, & I mean pour. This was the first time it has rained during this festival in 10 years. They told us it was a great sign. We did the meditation portion of the cermony in the temple until the rain stopped. Finally after 30 minutes or so we headed outside to release our lanterns. Wouldn't you know after all of the candle lighting & chanting, just as we were ready to light our lanterns it started to pour again, lol! Awesome to see all the lanterns, even with all the rain.
Thursday we went to the Ping river to release our Krathongs little banana leaf floats full of flowers, candles, & joss sticks. On the way to the river we stopped at a temple to release another lantern. It was so crowded, my mom decided she would like to stop & get a foot massage while the parade was passing. She is so spoiled ;) Parade & a 30 minute foot massage. We walked through the crowds & finally made it to the river to buy & release our katrongs. It was a super fun night!
Friday we decided to have a lazy day, we went out for breakfast late. Then headed to the spa for a little spoiling ourselves. My mom had a lovely 2 hour massage that consisted of a 30 minute foot massage, back, neck, shoulder massage, face & head massage, & a 30 minute herbal ball treatment. She was pretty much like jello after that ;) I settled for a facial & manicur/arm massage. Diane received a herbal foot spa & pedicure. I think we ended up spending around $30 total for all of us to be spoiled for 2 hours :)
Today we head off to the island of Koh Samui for some beach time! Got to go as our flight leaves soon :)
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