Weaving the Urban Fabric: Thailand

After a 14 hour flight from Los Angeles to Taipei, Scott and I were both tired and dirty. I saw a sign for a transit hotel in the Taipei Airport. Unfortunately they they didn't have any rooms left, but we were able to take hot showers for $10 each and use the free internet. Then it was back on the plane for three more hours to Bangkok, a 2-hour layover, and 1 1/2 hour flight to Chiang Mai where we would stay for a couple of days. When we arrived at the airport in Chiang Mai someone from our hostel, Eagle House 2, was suppose to pick us up, however, there was no one to be seen. Finally, we asked the information counter for help. The young guy behind the counter didn't speak much English, but we were able to get our message across and he was nice enough to call the hostel on his mobile phone to send someone to pick us up. We checked in to our very basic room with broken hot water and a pad lock on the door. There was a great courtyard for reading and relaxing and it was only about $5 per night.

November 5th is Loi Krathong, a festival held throughout Thailand on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. “Loi” means “to float”. “Krathong” is a raft traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk (although modern-day versions often use Styrofoam) and decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks, and etc. The act of floating away the Krathong's is symbolic of letting go of all one's grudges, anger and defilements, so that one can start life afresh on a better foot.

After getting settled into our room, we walked around the Old City, visiting some of the local Wats as we strolled. We stumbled upon a lively night street market as well. When it started to get dark, we called Chris and Erica, two Brits living in Chiang Mai who had invited us to join them on the river for the celebration. As we walked toward the river we found that there were already tons of people, vendor, and fireworks around the river. After crossing a footbridge over the river we found the Brits at a small restaurant right on the river. We had something called "chicken stew" and chicken curry for dinner and enjoyed watching the Krathong's, lanterns, and fireworks. Scott and I even purchased two Krathongs and sent them off down the river. Chris told us that this festival was to celebrate the end of the wet season and they also celebrated the bigging of the rainy season by throwing water at each other. Sounds like a great time, if we ever come back to Thailand.