Sniffles and Salad in Bangkok

I caught a cold as soon as I came back to Bangkok, so leaving for Chiang Mai got harder and harder, especially since I found out I missed the proper Yi Peng lantern release by 4 days (how I managed to miss this I am still flustered about, but oh well – major sad feelings going on about this). I sneezed and sniffled (or as my Czech friend said “snizzled”) around the Siam Journey Guesthouse until Loy Krathong. We built flower boats to light up and launch into the river- along with the rest of Bangkok- it was SO crowded. We had a long walk from the BTS station to Asiatique- a pier / shopping area on the water. There were lots of fireworks and many many people with all kinds of boats decorated and identified by locks of hair and a fingernail (so the water goddess recognizes your boat and wish). We used these baskets attached to bamboo poles to lower our Krathongs into the river. There were lots of fireworks and some live music and traditional dancing-pretty neat to see Bangkok all decked out. There were lots of lights around the city up just for this celebration.

After we ate some dinner we managed to find some paper lanterns and light those up too, the second one being delayed by a power line and a bunting hung up over the parking lot where we were but eventually making it up into the sky.