Loy Krathong/Yi Peng festival

If you’re coming to Thailand to experience the beauty and culture, one of the top ways to do that is to time your trip for the Loy Krathong and Yi Peng lantern festivals in mid-November. And arguably the best place to experience it is in Chiang Mai, situated a long day’s journey (428 miles) north of Bangkok. We arrived here with just a few days to shake off the jet lag and prepare for the three-day event, held this year on November 14-16.

The celebration was tempered due to mourning for King Bhumibol, who passed away on October 13. The traditional beauty contests and fireworks were not done, and quite a few displays were present to honor the king.

There are many aspects to this cultural and religious event, but the two central visible themes are the handmade loy krathong floating lanterns, and the prefab khom loy hot air balloons. The lanterns are available for sale in the sidewalk stalls, starting at about $1 each (25-40 baht) with special krathong creations ranging upward from there. In addition there are lantern displays in the streets and the temples, and artful layouts of candles arrayed on the sidewalks.

Krathongs are typically made of organic materials, which is good because they are going to mostly end up in the river. The base is made of a section of banana tree trunk. In addition to the floral arrangements there are usually incense sticks and candles. The array of krathongs was beautiful, and there were plenty for sale as we got nearer to the river, with prices surprisingly low at or near the riverside. Families and charitable groups were constructing them at tables set up right on the sidewalk.

The largest center for the release is near the foot of the Saphan Nawarat bridge, crossing the Ping River. We met up with Flora, a fellow couchsurfer and teacher of English here in Chiang Mai, and set out for the site. The adjacent roads and the bridge itself were packed with humanity. We were grateful that we chose to arrive well before sunset and found a spot on a concrete stoop just 4 muddy feet from the river. There was no one in front of us and we enjoyed an unobstructed view of the celebration for almost 2 hours. The sights were especially lovely under the extra-large “supermoon“.

The khom loy sky lanterns are the other famous visible part of the festivities, and their launch is integral to the Yi Peng festival, which overlaps the Loy Krathong festival. These hot-air balloon lanterns are released all over the city, and we saw them speckling the sky. (There is a large tourist-oriented release at Mae Jo University, with tickets costing $100-$300. You can see more about that here.) On Tuesday during the main celebration tourists released some of the lanterns on the bridge and along the river banks near us. The crowd roared in joy if the lanterns went up, and they squealed in unison if a lantern descended toward the crowd or actually crashed. One of the lanterns fell into the river at the footing of the concrete bridge, on top of a pile of wood and trash that had accumulated against the piling. It made a terrific sight, but it quickly extinguished itself.

(While fireworks were officially banned, you can see above that someone decided to send one up.)

As we left the area we made our way through thousands of people who were struggling to get to the river. There was no sign of traffic control, and cars, motorbikes and bicycles brushed against us in the sea of humanity. When we finally broke free from the crowds we were exultant and wiped out. We found a tuk-tuk to take us home to our apartment, one of the few outbound vehicles passing by a traffic jam of inbound people. It had been a beautiful, unforgettable night.