Thailand: festival at the full moon in November, to honour rivers and water. In a way it has become a desecration of rivers. With firecrackers being let off all over the country for days before and nights after the full moon, fireworks being fired over the rivers and mostly falling into the water, I hate to think of the amount of gun-powder which must end up in the bellies of fish. Little boats are set afloat on the water, with incense streaming - again, to clog up the river when it burns down or blows over. Then, there are the fabulous floating lanterns, made of thin tissue - material possibly being a rice paper with a thin coating of plastic to make them more durable. The substance which makes them rise is a white compound, like firelighter. When it burns out, the lanterns drop - wherever, on whatever and whomever. Sometimes, if the lantern doesn't rise properly, it drops, still burning. On the celebration nights in Chiang Mai this year, one could count hundreds in the air at any one time until late at night (and possibly after - I just stopped looking, at one point and went to bed - but literally hundreds were around. It's a fabulous experience, and also a deeply disturbing one. Fireworks exploding indiscriminately and a mess on and in, the rivers. Light, noise, communal kerfuffle, joyous, raucous, exhilarating - and polluting. There was a sense of exhilaration, of being at a high festival, unforgettable - but tinged with anxiety.
A technical aside - we started on Ratchadamnern Rd and went out via TaPhae Rd to the Ping River. I've uploaded somewhat in reverse order so that the ones closer to the river appear first.