loy krathong

It was the day of my golden birthday. I turned 25 years old on the 25th of November, which happened to be the same day as the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar, hence the Thai festival - Loy Krathong. Did you follow all of that?

It's a festival celebrated annually. Each year the date changes since it's based on the lunar calendar. The name Loy Krathong translates directly as "to float a basket" which comes from the tradition of making a krathong or a decorated basket which is floated on a river or any body of water nearby really. Traditionally, the floating baskets are made from a slice of a banana tree or a spider lily plant but in modern times they are mostly made of bread which adorably gets eaten up by fish in a number of minutes.

To see pictures and read more about this incredible holiday, click below

The krathong is decorated with elaborately folded banana leaves, lit incense sticks, possibly a candle and a small coin is sometimes included as a type of offering for the river spirits (though the coins are usually picked up by bad people who send their children in the water to fetch them).

As you light your incense and allow your krathong to float on the river, you are essentially paying respect to the water spirits - at least this is what the Thai people are doing. It symbolizes letting go of one's negativity, anger and any hatred. It's a revitalizing ritual that Justin, myself, and a couple friends participated in this year. 

I felt encouraged to do so for a number of reasons. It's been an incredibly rough year. Losing my father to a tragic accident was.... shitty. Fucking super shitty shit shit. It created a lot of bad blood in my family and things are just overall stressful and negative. For that, I'm happy to be half way across the world away from the drama. The fact that Loy Krathong fell on the evening of my golden birthday was a sign from the universe to let go of the negative energy I was feeling from home. Losing a parent complicates things... it makes things messy. 

As Justin and I said a prayer over our krathong before setting it off to float away, I felt a beautiful smile wash over my face. I'm so blessed to have Justin in my life, to have such gorgeous-on-the-inside kind of friends. I'm where I need to be in Thailand, with these people. 

I hope you all have these kind of beautiful people in your life as well. 

happy Loy Krathong