The morning after Loy Kratong night

In the dark of night, they look so beautiful. Nice shapes, good color and attractive features. So we make our wishes and lay them down, enjoying a few moments of beauty before they disappear from our lives.

Good thing we didn’t have to see their bloated corpses, drained of color, fouling the very river they were meant to honor.

Yep, it’s another morning after a one-night stand with Loy Kratong, and the pollution and garbage is a mess. More than 800,000 kratongs were released in Bangkok alone, so estimates the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority.

In these images from the Ping River in Chiang Mai, we see possibly the only people happy about the festival’s mess. Although many Thais believe collecting stuff from another’s kratong will bring bad luck, there are always watery interlopers waiting to pillage the drifting vessels to find any money placed within.

That’s the efficiency of the marketplace at work.

Few complain about this, but many agree the money-finders should at least pay their karmic debt down by helping to remove the spent kratongs from the water.

Photos: CM Price



Reader Interactions

Leave A Reply


BECOME A COCO+ MEMBER

Support local news and join a community of like-minded
“Coconauts” across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Join Now
Coconuts TV
Our latest and greatest original videos
Subscribe on