Loy Kratong – a quietly delightful festival
Loy Kratong is a time to concentrate on banishing all negative thoughts and emotions.
Thailand’s most famous festival is undoubtedly Songkran, the Thai New Year, the annual three-day water battle in April. At the other end of the year is a very different, much quieter yet infinitely more touching festival – Loy Kratong.
Stemming probably from the Indian festival of Dipawali, Loy Kratong allows participants to get rid of their anger, frustrations, jealousies – all those negative vibes – by watching floating them away on a river or a klong (or in Phuket from a beach) in a kratong.
Kratongs are small rafts, usually circular and about six to 10 inches across, decorated with folded banana leaves, flowers, joss sticks and a candle. Gently pushed into the stream or out onto the sea, they carry away all those bad vibes, allowing one to start afresh and newly calm.
Legend has it that the first kratong was made and launched by Queen Noppamas in Sukhothai some 700 years ago, so today Loy Kratong often features Noppamas Queen contests.
While the candles of the kratong light up the waterways, khom fai lanterns spangle the sky.
Another feature of the festival in Phuket is the lunching into the air of khom fai – delicate paper balloons about a metre in height and half a metre in diameter, lofted by a small flame burning in the base. Hundreds of these taking off and mingling with the stars are a thoroughly uplifting sight.
The main celebration of this festival in Phuket takes place at Saphan Hin, just southeast of Phuket Town, but many other places join in, including most of the island’s hotels.
Traditionally, the base of a kratong is made from a horizontal slice of a banana tree, but sadly, in recent years some people (particularly vendors selling kratongs to the public) have substituted styrofoam, creating unwelcome pollution of waterways and sea. So if you buy a kratong, make sure it’s the traditional type.
This year’s festival is on November 2.
