Hello everyone, sorry I've been away from Blogland for a while. I disappeared into an amazing month where we had over thirty of our family and friends come from Australia, Asia, and Europe to visit us in Bangkok to help celebrate our Wedding Anniversary.
We offered a weekend of fun and festivities and ended up with a glorious month-long celebration, with friends dropping in before and after their extended holidays all over Asia.
During this period Thailand was at the culmination of a year's mourning for the late King Bhumibol Abdoulaye. It was not the easiest time to organise a party weekend as basically all celebrations across the country were put on hold. Private events could continue, however, we were all concerned to ensure these were respectful given the circumstances.
I could well find that as event planning goes, our Friday night, complete with a Ladyboy finale, may well be up there as one of my all-time greatest life achievements, but I'll save that story for another time!
So we emerged from this dark period in Thai history with the loss of a much-loved king who reigned for 70 years, and the entire country dressed in black, into the colourful, vibrant festival of Loi Krathong.
It was such a contrast from previous months to see Thailand back in colour and to see the happiness of the event.
We almost needed to wear our sunnies, everything felt strange after months of black and grey. The candles twinkling on the Krathong's floating in the water, the music and the dancing, it was as if we were finally given permission to move into a new era.
We were invited to join a Loi Krathong party by the team at Bliston Apartments, where we had first stayed on our arrival in Bangkok. Our first job was to make our own Krathong. This is not as tricky as it may seem and we were guided to make the most beautiful boats to float on the swimming pool.
We started with a polystyrene base which we covered in banana leaf cups and filled them with orchids and clover, topped with a candle and some incense.
Earlier in the day we had stopped at Lumpini park and enjoyed seeing all the ready-made krathongs on sale - aren't they attractive? We bought a turtle it was too good to float and is still going strong as a centerpiece on our dining room table.
It is one of the most picturesque of Thai festivals as people gather across the country around water to float their Krathong boats.
The Loi Krathong festival comes at the end of the rice season and people give thanks to the water Gods and there is much talk about floating away the anger, or the ills of the year and starting afresh. They say if your Krathong stays alight till is disappears you will have a year full of good luck.
Our party was held around the swimming pool, traditionally people go the the lakes, rivers and canals (or klongs as they are called) in Bangkok.
Thank you to Bliston Apartments for your kind invitation to join your festivities! We loved our first Loi Krathong, I am sure this is something that we will want to participate in each year ... as long as we have enough good luck to allow this!
Linking with thanks to Beverley at Pink Saturday
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