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Story highlights
Loi Krathong lantern festival has been celebrated in Thailand for centuries
Floating flower lanterns and airborne rice-paper lanterns are released by residents and tourists
In Chiang Mai, festival has become a street party that lasts for days
The Loi Krathong festival has been celebrated throughout Thailand for centuries, usually to mark the end of the rainy season.
Each year, thousands of paper lanterns are released into the night sky to symbolically ward off bad luck, while rivers are covered by floating flower lanterns, adorned with candles and joss sticks, cast into waterways to wish for good luck.
With flower and flame, the city of Chiang Mai in particular comes alive during these festive days each November.
The event has been transformed over the years from a reverent temple ritual to a rowdy street party that lasts for days.
“The real meaning of the festival is to worship Buddha and the goddess of the river,” says Sarah Wahtong a native of Chiang Mai.
But now it’s a magnet for foreign and local tourists with dozens of events and parades taking place throughout the city each day and night.
While the carefully crafted floating flower lanterns don’t disrupt the city with anything more than banana leaves and blooms, the flying lanterns have a potentially more hazardous impact.
During this year’s festival, like years gone by, dozens of flights from the local airport had to be diverted or canceled the moment thousands of lanterns took to the air.
It seems that despite threats of fines and prosecution, Chiang Mai residents and visitors alike chose to respect the ancient traditions rather than modern laws. Legal or not, it did create a dazzling spectacle in the night sky.
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