LOI KRATONG is the festival I celebrated last Friday night.

Every year in Thailand, on the full-moon of the 12th lunar month, Thailand celebrates Loy Krathong, which is also known as the “festival of lights."

On this evening, the country's waterways - rivers, canals, even hotel swimming pools - turn into a sea of dazzling lights. The lights come from small floats that carry people's cares downstream. This year Loy Krathong fell on November 26th. "Loy" means "to float," and 'krathong" means a “leaf cup." Hence, most floating objects you see during the Loy Krathong night are flowers formed like cups, or artificial lotus petals shaped like cups.

The one I floated down river was made by my friend "Wut," who lives near my home. It was a simple structure, made of palm stalk, banana leaves and flowers, with candles and incense burners in the middle.

While walking down the river bank to deposit our "Krathong," I tripped on loose leaves and dumped the whole thing onto the ground. We managed to piece it back together, but I couldn't help but wonder if bad luck had dropped it's dark shroud upon us. (Me and my uncoordination may have cost us our lives in the next world).

Loy Krathong is a colorful event, and many people call it Thailand's loveliest festival. To mark the occasion, Thai women wear resplendent, colorful traditional attire, (this I can attest to and I must say I was quite impressed!) and festoon their hair with flowers. (not to mention tight, tight jeans!).

Explanation of the festival's significance varies. There are those who say that as the floats embark on their journey, they take with them the owner's misfortunes and believe this is a way of sloughing off one's sins as well. (Good deal for the Jeeemeister!)

On a lighter note, it is also believed that lovers can tell their romantic fortunes by watching their krathong float together downstream. As far as lovers are concerned, a pair of krathong sticking together into the darkness promises lifelong partnership... You don't need to believe the myth and philosophy behind it.

-Jeeem-


Posted by Hello

Hello to all of you!

I want to thank everybody for the warm e-mails and concern during my recent absence, however, I am fine.....it was my laptop that was sick. The computer tech said the mother board was toast, and then presented me with several options. One option was to replace the mother board, an expensive endeavor as Dell parts from the U.S. don't come cheap. The next option was to buy a used Dell and exchange the hard drive. Final option was naturally to buy a new computer.

Well, I took option "B" and purchased a Dell Latitude (which I affectionately call my "Dell Attitude) Pentium 3, which easily accepted my old hard drive and after some parts exchanges (RAM chips, etc.) I was in business!

Price? 19,000 Baht (about $473.00 U.S.)

Not too shabby overall. Anyways, I'm finally B-A-C-K like a bad case of indigestion.

My trip to Koh Phi Phi Don was.....well.......okay. Not really my cup of tea actually. More for the jet set and the very wealthy. Extremely hot, crowded, too commercialized and too expensive, although I did manage to have a good time. Spent 6000 baht for the trip and spent 8000 baht on the island.

Not to get into too much detail here, if you're interested, check out my review on Virtual Tourist dot com. Will get pictures posted as soon as I can, although I must admit that I really didn't take all that many.

I'm back to work again and loving it. The kids are wonderful and the classes are going well. Our rainy season here seems to have petered out and we are left with sunny, hot and humid days. I'm managing to get out and about around the village more and I really hope to begin taking some more pictures as soon as I can, for all to see.

Enough for now....I've got to get back to answering all my e-mails that have piled up during my absence. I'll post again soon.

-Jeeem-