Loi Krathong & Lost in Lampang

This week was my first Thai festival. It was Loi Krathong which occurs every year on the 12th month (of the Lunar calendar) at the full moon. "Loi" means "to float" and "Krathong" is a small raft made of banana leaves in the shape of a lotus with a candle and incense. They light the candle and incense and send it down the river. They also light lanterns made of a tissue paper that rise (like hot air balloons) into the sky. I was told that this gets rid of bad luck- all the bad luck and worries rise to the sky. Our landlady invited us all to send some off on Wednesday night. We sent off 3 or 4. The sky was full of them, but unfortunately pictures can't really capture what the sky looked like.


After that, I went with Margo, Apple, and Dao to another teacher's house (an older teacher who I had never met before). Her and her husband told us to sit down and pour ourselves a drink...there was plenty of whiskey to go around. They live right next to the river, so we just crossed the street (which was jam packed with people, cars, and motorbikes)to see the floats in the river. Aside from the little candles floating in the water, there was a procession of huge floats, each more ornate than the next, each with a girl or two sitting and waving and a few men as the crew. Again, I have lots of pictures of these, but it was dark out so most of the beauty is lost in the pictures. We set off even more of the sky lanterns. The mystery of where the lanterns actually land when it burns out was solved when a blackened lantern landed in the yard. To accompany all the lights and people were lots and lots of firecrackers, sparklers, and fireworks (Dad, this festival is for you!)...which leads to many spark related injuries every year.


Wednesday night also happened to be my first night with my own motorbike. I was petrified to drive knowing it would be one of the busiest nights of the year on the road, but I survived...good thing its automatic.
In school on Thursday, I found out that Loi Krathong wasn't over...Thursday was the "big" Krathong...with more fireworks and firecrackers, lanterns, and a parade around the city. Margo wasn't feeling so well, so I went with some of the other farangs living in my apartment building, but couldn't find them in the crowd. I was with my neighbor, Sean, searching for anyone else we were supposed to meet up with, even calling them several times...no luck in actually finding them though. Eventually, Sean's girlfriend found us and they walked back. I was alone with my motorbike and had a good idea how to get back. The problem was that the direction I needed to go was completely blocked off due to the parade and huge crowd. I tried to make my way around it, but turned too soon and came smack right into the parade procession again. So I turned off my motorbike and enjoyed the parade for a few minutes before turning around and continuing home...only I didn't make it home quite yet. Every turn I tried to make I ran into the parade.


I ended up driving around in circles forever. I passed the place I started twice and saw parts of town I've never seen before. After about a half an hour of wrong turn after wrong turn, I started to feel a bit better when things started to look familiar and I was sure I was about to come out on the main road near my school or house. But no. It looked familiar because I had passed it 10 minutes earlier and went in a huge circle! I contemplated calling Margo, or someone who knows Lampang better than I do, but the problem was, I had no idea where I was! Eventually (after what seemed like hours) I ended up on a familar road and back to my apartment. Exhausted, I plopped myself down on my bed and decided to watch some tv. I'll admit that I watched 3 episodes of Hannah Montana since that was the only thing that was in English that wasn't the news. Obviously not what I would pick to watch if given a greater selection (no offense Krista). I've also stooped as low as to watch the new 90210 show...its so bad...awful acting.
For my lesson this week, I decided to give my students the lyrics to "Beautiful Girl" by Sean Kingston and have them fill in the missing words. I know that they have all heard of the song and might know the chorus, but none of them actually knew any of the rest of thew words. I have to play it 4 times in each class, so with 21 classes, I think I might be suicidal.
Yesterday, was my first volleyball practice! I went and met the team and the coach on Monday with Margo, but didn't make it to play until yesterday. Since its their off season, its really lax and I just got to warm-up and play with them. The coach is really nice (I bumped into him at lunch and ate with him) but speaks little English. Some of the girls speak pretty good English. The team is actually quite good, especially since they are a lot shorter than your average team in the US. I'm excited to finally be playing volleyball (and excercising) again!
So this week was a lot of firsts...and a lot of fun!