Loy Krathong

Loy Krathong means to float a banana leaf cup on water.
We do this to ask Mother of Water to forgive us for polluting the water.
(funny to appologize by sticking things onto the water!)
Loy Krathong Day falls in November when there is a full moon in the sky and there is "full water" in the river.
There are beauty pagents like the Miss Nopamas Competition. I was sponsered by the Moon Cafe to be in the Frarang (foreigner) Beauty Contest, but it was canceled due to the flood.

We bought banana leaves, flowers and pieces of banana tree trunk at the market. To make the krathong, we folded the leaves so they would stand, pinned them down, and pinned flowers on top. We later bought candles and incense to make our Krathong glow.

Mine was quite small and cute. I did add more flowers after this picture was taken.

We lit our krathong and set them into the river. There were little boys who made sure the krathongs got out into the current and floated away. We later realized they were also stealing the coins we added for good fortune. (I guess it is industrious of them, otherwise the money would simply sit at the bottom of the river.)

We didn't think to bring a lighter. As we were discussing what to do, this woman offered us hers. She and her daughter are from Canada, so their English was great. The mother was born in Thailand. The girl is wearing a traditional Thai dress.