Back in Chiang Mai. It is the first time in my life that I have gone back to a place that I had once moved away from. And for good reason, Chiang Mai is everything that I remember it to be with all its ups and downs. This town is a funky little place with an atmosphere like no other place that I have ever lived in. And as I found out this week, it also has not one but two of the craziest festivals that I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

            The first is the Songkran festival held to commemorate the Thai new year. It started as a way of giving thanks and making merit. Part of the merit making was to wash the Buddha statues at temples by sprinkling them with water. In the last ten years though, this has taken off from a mere sprinkling of water, to an all out dousing on a mass scale. It is a three day water fight on a country wide scale like nothing I have ever seen before. Before this weekend I would have called it the craziest festival I have ever seen.

            However the full moon in November marks the occasion for the biggest display of unfettered insanity I have ever in my life seen. It is the Loi Gratong festival in Northern Thailand. Traditionally this festival is to give thanks to the river for providing food and sustenance. Thais celebrate and earn merit by floating gratings (floating lanterns made from bamboo and candles and incense) down the river. Also merit is gained by floating rice paper balloons filled with hot air into the night sky. This is done on mass with thousands of these person size lanterns floating in the night sky at the same time. It makes for a beautiful and ethereal spectacle unlike anything I have ever seen before. From a distance it looks like thousands of bright orange stars floating into the night sky.

            The true insanity however is caused by the fireworks. People of all walks of life shoot off fireworks on mass at this festival as well. Markets are filled with multitudes of brightly coloured fireworks boxes of all shapes and sizes. Adults, children and even Buddhist monks can be seen shopping for fireworks prior the Loi Gratong festivities. On the night of Loi Gratong the river ping in Chiang Mai is ablaze with lanterns floating down stream as well as the sky lanterns floating into the sky. It is also ablaze with fire crackers. It is a scene much reminiscent of the bridge in the movie Apocalypse Now. At times, with all the explosions, fire and noise, it is hard to believe that this takes place in peace time.

            It is hard to imagine a more active, noisy and surreal festival. Perhaps next year I will have to make it to the running of the bulls. Perhaps, just maybe that would compete for the craziest festival.

            Oh and if these two festivals are not enough, Puket in southern Thailand also has the vegetarian festival in October. Where the Chinese population of devout Buddhists earns merit by piercing their bodies with large metal objects of all shapes and sizes, from ‘small’ needles the size of a pencil to swords and spears the thickness of a garden rake.