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'Boat' Festival
In our trip to Thailand in 2007, we went to Surat Thani in southern Thailand to visit Lucia's mother and brothers who live there. Upon arrival, her brother took us to the local 'boat' festival that was occurring that weekend. There are no boats in the boat festival, even though Surat Thani sits along the ocean. For the 'boat' festival, the Buddhist temples in the outlying provinces build floats that are constructed on trailers and made to look like boats or sea serpents. They are decorated with all sorts of materials that are colorfully painted. The materials are made to look fish scales and feathers, as some of the photographs will show. There were at least 50 floats at the festival and they were lined up in closely spaced rows. Attached to the floats were one or more pots where people could drop Thai Baht coins in. Whenever you put a coin or two in the pot, the priest or nun would sprinkle holy water on you.
It was difficult to take pictures of the entire floats and I really could not use a tripod. So I shot these shots were taken with the a handheld camera. I am grateful to have stumbled upon this festival and having the chance to see the beautiful floats. If I ever return to Surat Thani I will try to schedule it to coincide with their annual 'boat' festival. I only visited the festival during the daytime, but the photographs show that there are strings of lights strung throughout the float. I would really like to see and photograph the floats at night.
Click on the thumbnail picture to see a full sized version of the photograph. You can scroll through the pictures by clicking on the left or right sides of the picture. Clicking on the center of the enlarged picture will return you to the thumbnails.