Loy Krathong and YI PenG Festival
11/05/25 - 11/06/25
While we were in Chiang Mai, there were two big festivals going on at basically the same time. They both coincide with the first full moon each November.
Loy Krathong is a festival where people float krathongs (small, decorated baskets) on the Ping River to show thanks and let go of negativity. The little baskets/boats were beautiful, and the concept is pretty cool, but honestly, the execution is a bit flawed. There are candles on the baskets and you are supposed to see the river lit up with the baskets that they launched… but it turns out that fire doesn’t survive well when surrounded by water!
We had a nice dinner at a Michelin rated restaurant near the river and went out to watch baskets being launched. We saw tons of little baskets floating on the river, but only about 15% were still lit. It was still really pretty seeing all the people and lights along the river. Then we hit a nice roof top bar and watched the fireworks which weren’t spectacular, but it was still very enjoyable. It’s not everyday you get to sit at a rooftop bar in Thailand and watch fireworks!!
Yi Peng is a religious festival which involves releasing floating sky lanterns called khom loi into the sky. It is a celebration of the new year where people release their worries and bad luck by launching the lanterns, which represent letting go of negative energy and welcoming good fortune. We went to one of the big launch sites which was about an hour from town.
There is fire involved… so not entirely safe. The lanterns are pretty big and made of paper with a candle like thing in the bottom. You really need to hold your lantern for a decent amount of time until enough heat fills the paper “balloon” and it is ready to float (kind of like a hot air balloon). We saw some people try to launch their lanterns way too quickly and one literally did not go up at all! It just floated along about 6-7 feet parallel to the ground and almost came down directly on a woman’s head. She was not happy! And I didn’t see any fire extinguishers in sight! We launched our lanterns and made haste to view from a distance (and to get a beer if I’m being entirely honest! 😊)
The celebrations included parades, cultural performances, and (of course) food. It is a really popular festival… people come from around the world to experience it. We missed the actual parade because it occurred when we were at the lantern launch, but Grady saw a bunch of the floats queued up when he was on his morning walk to go play pickleball.
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