Photos above were not taken by me - I don't have a tripod and it's difficult to take photos of this remarkable event without one. The first two pix show children launching their kratongs into the river and the third one shows the thousands of lanterns that are lit and released into the night sky. It's actually pretty dangerous - but beautiful.
The festival marks the end of the rainy season and symbolic of floating away - letting go of - all one's grudges, anger and mistakes, in order to start life anew in the coming year.
In 2013, more than 800,000 krathongs [boats] were floated in Bangkok's river. . . Meanwhile Chiang Mai International Airport reported more than 900 floating lanterns falling on the runway ground Sunday night; itis believed that the wind blew the floating lanterns to fall on the airport compound. The airport has special teams to collect the falling lanterns immediately and has sought cooperation from all airlines to put off landing or take-off. Yikes.
