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The festival

Day 4: Sukhothai Loy Krathong and Candle Festival 2024

Last night and tonight we watched the hour long light and sound show as part of this now famous festival.  The first night we watched from the cheap seats and tonight we paid for tickets to see the show up front.  It must be one of the largest national festivals with thousands and thousands of people attending across the week of activities.  It is amazing to see the pride and energy around celebrating the beginnings of what became Thailand over 700 years.  I think of it as an over the top fourth of July festival.

Enjoy the photos.

We are getting excited as we end this brief part of our journey to now move onto one of the main reasons we chose this place to stay – it is the jumping off point for our main attraction – the Boon Lotts Elephant Sanctuary.  It is amazing to think it is already upon us.

How fun!

The entrance to the Sukhothai National Park and festival grounds
It is a sea of color as soon as you arrive – like this lake that you can launch your own Loy Krathong – a candle and incense offering on a bed of banana leaves often decorated with flowers – meant to show gratitude to the goddess of water after the rainy season is over and to ask for forgiveness for the abuses down to her during the last year
These were our seats the first night – a few hundred feet across the moat into the temple grounds and the main stage
The temple lit up
A reenactment of the princess putting in the first Krathong – floating candle
Curtain call at the end where the princess – now the queen is joined by the historic King
David hanging out with his new best friends from the production
At the end – they invite audience members to let off their own lanterns – we didn’t realize that they are as tall as a person
So, of course we joined in and let it go into the night
… And it floated up along the others
The temple complex
The view front the cheap seats the night before – a good view of the whole temple complex
There were several hundred candles lit during the ceremony
Several Loy Krathongs float into each other after already being offered onto the lake
And there are even more Loy Krathong decorations around the whole park
There were tens of thousands people each night for the eight day festival – multiple stages like this one throughout the park
David is proud to show off his own Loy Krathong
A close- up
And there it goes to join the others on the pond
Each night there is free production of one of the popular local legends on the island in the middle of the lake
The show ends with the royal barge boats …
… And fireworks
And now it is time to say goodbye to Sukhothai as we head off to our next adventure – the elephant sanctuary

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sirianddavid

Siri and David live in Redmond, Washington, and enjoy living, traveling, and learning about different cultures.

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