Festivals

"The King comes out of the city, accompanied by the whole of the nobility, in barges richly gilded and covered with ornaments, with great display and noise of musical instruments. They proclaim the King is about to order the waters to disperse; and this is the great festival of the year. A mast is raised in the middle of the stream, adorned with silken flags, and a prize suspended for the best rower. All the contending boats put themselves in trim, and at a given signal start, with such cries, and shouting, and tumults, as if the world was being destroyed...."

— Diogo Do Couto, Portuguese adventurer (1543)

The Loy Krathong festival at Sukhothai, where according to legend the magic ritual originated more than seven centuries ago.

A famous stone inscription, attributed to King Ramkhamhaeng of Sukhothai, describes a merit-making procession to a forest monastery outside the capital. "When they are ready to return to the city," it says, "they walk together, forming a line all the way to the parade-ground. They join together in striking up the sound of musical instruments, chanting and singing. Whoever wants to make merry, does so; whoever wants to laugh, does so. As this city of Sukhothai has four very big gates, and as the people always crowd together to come in and watch the lighting of candles and setting off of fireworks, the city is noisy as if it was bursting."

Music and merrymaking, laughter and songs, crowds of people and exploding fireworks-seven centuries later, this is still an accurate description of many of the traditional festivals scattered throughout the Thai year. Though some may be essentially serious, they usually have a lighter side as well, a generous infusion of what the Thais call sanuk, or fun.

Take, for instance, the northeastern bun bangfai, or skyrocket festival. This incorporates Brahmanical, Buddhist and animist elements and is basically concerned with bringing abundant rain to that often drought-stricken part of Thailand. At the same time, it provides an opportunity for a good deal of high-spirited behavior that is normally suppressed within the rather conservative village culture.

The same is true of Songkran, which marks the beginning of the old Thai new year. The ceremonial part of Songkran consists of bringing offerings to local monasteries and annointing both the abbot and the principal Buddha images with lustral water; homes are also given a thorough cleaning, and elder members of the family are sprinkled with water by the younger as a sign of respect. Thereafter, the spirit of sanuk takes over. Instead of ritual water-sprinkling, whole buckets are thrown, with any passer-by being fair game. No one minds, though-the weather is hot enough to make a cool bath welcome and it is, after all, Songkran.

Children place a lighted candle, incense sticks, and a coin for luck in each lotus-shaped krathong before setting them adrift.

Traditional Thai dancing and pretty girls, always part of the Loy Krathong celebration.

For beauty, no Thai festival can really compare with Loy Krathong, held on the full-moon night of the 11th lunar month. This pays homage to the water spirits. Thai legend says it originated in Sukhothai when a lady of the court, seeking to please her royal master, deftly folded banana leaves in the shape of a lotus blossom, which she then adorned with flowers, incense sticks and a lighted candle. The innovation so pleased the king that Loy Krathong became an annual event, celebrated today by setting thousands of little boats adrift on rivers and canals all over the country.

Some festivals are peculiar to a particular province or even a town. Phuket, for example, has a 10-day Vegetarian Festival. Essentially a Chinese celebration, this has turned into an all-island event with parades, music and dancing; many of the participants go into trances and perform quite spectacular feats of self-mortification such as walking on red-hot coals and piercing their bodies with spikes. Chiang Mai has a Flower Festival, with awards for the best blossom-bedecked float, and Lampang has a Garlic Festival, complete with the crowning of a local beauty selected as Miss Garlic.

Ancient Sukhothai returns to life each year when the Loy Krathong festival is staged in its ponds and moats.

The Royal Barge Procession, now held only on special occasions such as the Golden Jubilee, is one of the most magnificent Thai spectacles. Dozens of incredibly carved and gilded barges, some dating from early Bangkok, carry the King in state along the Chao Phraya Riven while some 2,000 oarsmen in traditional costumes chant rythmically. The largest of the vessels, the Supphanahongsa, is over 50 meters long, adorned with a mythical, swan-like bird at its prow. The purpose of the procession is to bring alms to riverside temples, particularly Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, on the Thonburi side.

Temple murals with scenes of life in early Bangkok often show a rapt crowd gathered before theatrical performances. The rarest of these today, at least in its full unabbreviated glory, is the khon, or masked dance drama. The khon plot is derived from the Ramakien, the Thai version of the Indian Ramayana, an epic account of the triumph of good over evil. Many of the characters wear magnificent papier-mache masks, and the story is told through a vocabulary of stylized postures and gestures, expressing not only action but also thought and feeling.

Khon was originally limited to the royal court but eventually moved outside the palace walls in a form called lakhon, which draws its stories from other traditional sources but with similar costumes and gestures. A subdivision, lakhon chatri, is performed by women and groups can often be seen dancing at various shrines, hired by grateful supplicants whose wishes have been granted by the resident spirit.

Also rare today is nangyai, the shadow-play the earliest Thai dance-drama which was probably introduced from Indonesia. Intricately shaped figures made of cowhide, depicting characters from the Ramakien, are held behind a lighted screen and move to the accompaniment of music and choral singing. In a more popular version called nang talung, still to be seen in the far south, the figures are smaller and often have one moveable part such as a chin or arm; concealed along with the manipulators are singers and comedians whose witty contributions probably account for the continuing life of the form.

Traditional costumes worn by oarsmen who propel the huge barges.

One of the ornate barges, most of which are hewn from a single teak log.

A hilltribe boy at the Loy Krathong celebration in Chiang Mai.

Certain rituals are part of everyday life. Some traditional families still stage a top-knot cutting ceremony to celebrate a child's coming of age, usually presided over by a Brahmin priest, and, in most, it is a joyous occasion when a son is ordained as a Buddhist monk for a period. Old costumes are customarily worn at Thai weddings, the celebration of a 60th birthday (that is, completion of the fifth 12-year cycle) is a major event, and cremation rites at a temple go on for days or even months depending on the deceased's importance and rank In addition, of course, there are such customs as making daily offerings to the resident spirit, giving food to monks, visiting various shrines, and ceremonies to honor revered teachers.

Many of the duties of Thailand's much-loved monarchy are ceremonial, and splendor as well as tradition is important in these. The magnificent Royal Barge Procession, when the king is rowed in state down the Chao Phraya River in a fleet of carved and gilded barges, is seldom seen nowadays, though it was staged for several important recent events such as the celebrations of the Chakri Dynasty's bicentennial in 1982, the kings 60th birthday in 1987 and the Royal Jubilee in 1996. Others, however, are regular events that take place throughout the year.

There is, for instance, the annual royal Plowing Ceremony, an ancient Brahmin ritual that goes back to Ayutthaya times and that was revived by the present king. Thousands of spectators come to Sanam Luang, the oval field across from the Grand Palace, to watch a symbolic rice-planting ritual and learn from various omens what the coming season will bring.

An imaginative Loy Krathong decoration displayed in a lake.

Winner of a beauty contest, one of the popular features of most Thai festivals.

Colorful banners displayed outside the library of an old monastery in Chiang Mai during the New Year celebration.

Homage is paid to the revered Phra Buddha Sihing image at Wat Phra Singh in Chiang Mai.

Three times a year, the king presides over the changing of the robes of the sacred Emerald Buddha, spiritual guardian of the kingdom: a golden, diamond-studded tunic for the hot season, a gilded robe flecked with blue stones for the rainy months, and one of enamel-coated solid gold, covering the image from head to toe, for the cool season.

As Head of the Armed Forces, he is the focus of the annual Trooping of the Colors, a grand display of brilliant uniforms held in the Royal Plaza near the equestrian statue of his grandfather, King Chulalongkorn. There are also countless other events transformed by the kings presence into memorable occasions: university graduation ceremonies when the proud graduates personally receive their degrees from his hands, the presentation of credentials by new foreign ambassadors, the casting of Buddha images at various temples, the sprinkling of lustral water at wedding celebrations and cremations of important citizens are but a few examples.

Royal or religious, solemn or full of sanuk-sometimes a combination of all these-festivals and ceremonies form an integral part of Thai life.

Large crowds turn out for Songkran, celebrating the old Thai New Year; during which Buddha images are paraded through the streets and water is thrown with cheerful abandon.