Scenes from a Thai Festival

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Scenes from a Thai Festival: North Thailand Thailand- a vivid tropical and corner of the world and also a central location for international flights. It is a kingdom of the traditional countryside beside modernization of the Bangkok metropolis, tribal people in the landscape blend with global travelers all over, wild vicinity nearby tourist oriented places. Getting around in Thailand is very easy, especially when you stay on the traveler’s sights. Starting my sight seeing, on October 2002, I visited North of Thailand, the city of Chiang Mai and the pictorials village of Pai. Pai was celebrating a local harvesting Festival. The one main street was occupied with stalls of food, souvenirs and more. Next to the special markets there were small stages for musicians and a big Thai dancing stage.

North Thailand is a convenient place to travel to the peaceful country next door- Laos. It seems like this country slept for a century and just started to wake up to the end of 20^th century, due to the interest of world explorers. You will find there old squeaking buses and tuk-tuk vehicles, bicycles and motor bikes and next to them a nice 4WD Toyota; you will find it hard to make a phone call and easier to contact your loved ones by e-mail (though very slow); There are mud houses with a sat light dish on the straw roof… View slideshow on Thailand and Laos: The People and The Land
			A year later, on the 7^th, 8^th and 9^th of October 2003, It was a time of “Yee-peng” or “Loy krathong” (festival of lights/ River floating Lanterns Festival) in Thailand: A Buddhist gala celebrated on the full moon of Lunar (12^th) month. The city is getting ready for three grand nights of glamorous parades, preparing shiny costumes and decorated vehicles. For this special occasion people busy making and selling floating lotus-shaped banana leaf boats, on it 3 long candles, some incense and orange and white flowers. Right after sunset the streets filled with local and tourists holding those krathongs (and cameras), watching the parade, comparing the princes and princesses passing by and joining them to the river. Once the incense sticks and candle have been lit, the krathong is now ready to be smoothly placed in the river and, as the swirls and currents carry it away, it is hoped and prayed that problems of the past year will also float away and allow better times to come in the future.
In the festival there are stages presenting traditional and contemporary Thai dances, big markets, foot massage stations, food stand of sweets or spicy, fresh fruit and delicious fruit shakes stalls. The Thai food is famous for its rich mixture of tastes: from street food to fancy restaurants. On the streets there are foods on cart wheel: fried pat-thai (flat noodles with egg), grilled meet (mostly pork and chicken), fresh tropical fruits (pineapple, papaya, watermelon), and the most interesting type of street food- pan fried crickets and scorpions (crunchy…). A festival of tastes! A festival of lights! A festival in Thailand…
Previous Page: The Dance of the Long Nails View slideshow on Thailand and Laos: The People and The Land
More about Thai Dance in click here: http://www.thaimain.org/eng/thailand/dance.html http://www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/thaidance.htm http://www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/thai_classical.htm More about Lanna – The northern Thai culture: http://www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/lanna_dance.htm
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