Tonight is a festival called Loy Kratong- Festival of Light. It's celebrated in November, on the night of the full moon. It's kind of been adopted by Buddhists, and basically, this is what happens here in Thailand. They make little octagonal boats with styrofoam and banana leaves, and lotus flowers, put candles, and money and incense in them, and then send them down the river. Some people had bread baked into the shape of a turtle, or dessert type things that were shaped like flowers. Though it isn't a traditionally Buddhist thing, they believe that by sending these things down the river, they can earn merit, and escape the cycle faster.
Sorry the pictures aren't that great. It was dark, and there were tons of people there.
We went to a temple near Ekkamai, to see what was happening. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people there; big stages with people dancing and singing; decorated images to pray to; extra bowls out to drop money into.
The air was thick with smoke from the candles, and incense that people were burning to get more merit. We kept hearing the clinking of people dropping 108 coins into bowls and the ringing of bells that "please the spirits". You could buy baby turtles, eels, and catfish to re-release into the river, because by doing that, you would be freeing them, and gaining merit.
At first it was kind of exciting, because there was so much going on. And then it got really depressing. There were millions of people who placed little boats in the river tonight, all over Thailand, Laos, and Burma, who are going to bed believing that they are one step closer to escaping from the cycle of life and death.
But it's not going to help. Because there is no cycle.
That's why we're doing, what we're doing.
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