For 362 days a year, Yasothon is not unlike any other middle-sized Isaan town: a few main sois, lots of farmland, and a modest peppering of temples. Oh yea, and loads of incredible restaurants.
But for three day during the second weekend in May every year, this little town transforms into an extravaganza of non-stop rocketry, dancing, strumming, gambling, and drinking – the Bun Bang Fai Rocket Festival.
This may sound like the ultimate weekend of debauchery, and in some ways it is, but the roots of this tradition go far beyond the modern day celebration of drowning in Leo. The festival’s ultimate purpose to make it rain, and we’re not talking about spewing twenty baht bills all over town.
Locals spend weeks constructing enormous rockets from bamboo stalks and PVC pipes that are then launched into the sky to excite the gods into making it rain and hopefully make for a successful rice planting season.
The festival is divided into three main acts. From Friday evening into the wee hours of the morning, residents pound rice wine and dance to blasting mor lam and techno music along the main corridor of town. Saturday is spent performing traditional dances and proudly displaying floats on the same road that partygoers were getting wild just hours before. Finally the festival concludes with the launching of the homemade rockets in the fields just outside town.
Bun Bang Fai is a last chance to really let loose before the backbreaking work of the planting season, and the feeling of revelry is palpable throughout Yasothon for those few days.
