Buddhist Lent and Candles

Thais celebrate Buddhist Lent (เข้าพรรษา) each year around July. During this time monks are supposed to stay in their temples rather than travel, and lay people abstain from some activities such as drinking alcohol.

Perhaps more importantly, at least in the temporal sense, the event is recognized as the beginning of the rainy season, which is vital for the rice-producing plateau of Northeastern Thailand. The region is relatively arid, and farmers must wait for the rains in order to begin planting the yearly crop.

As part of the celebrations, traditionally people would provide special gifts to the monks, including candles. The candle gifting has transformed in parts of the Northeast into a major festival. During my visit this time around, I was able to observe the candle festival in both Sakon Nakhorn and Ubolratchathani (Ubol). In both cities, a number of temples commission giant candles which are paraded around town and entered into a candle contest.

One morning I wandered around Sakon to look at the candles as they were being assembled. This man carved the patterns in this candle by hand, taking about one month prior to the festival.

When he finished, they used a crane to put the candle together. This was the entry from Wat Phochai.

I then walked to Wat Nua where this man was using a sodering iron to attach wax figures to the candle base.

It was a more detailed candle, although it was assembled from molds rather than hand-carved.

Wat Nua's candle won second place in the city; it was pretty impressive. Here the candle is posted outside Wat That Cheung Chum, which appeared in my last post. The temple's home team won the contest.

After a few days in Sakon, though, I headed to Ubol, where the candle festival has developed into a grand event. Candles in Ubol are no longer just candles, they are parade floats of orange wax.

And they are pretty amazing.  This one got first place (see the little red banner hanging from the dragon's nose).

Second place. Eagle killing snakes. Good job, eagle. Good job.

Third.

And another winner.

Here are a few close-ups.

 A traditional wai (greeting).

 It's even nice from a monster! Such a polite young demon.

Elephants are wonderful, even in wax form.

Pretty flowers made of bee poop! What once was a flower has been ingested by a bee, processed, harvested by a human, colored, shaped, and again become a flower. It's the circle of life. And it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, till we find our place, on the path unwinding, in the circle... The circle of life...

 The details are pretty impressive.

 A two-tone entourage.

Three-headed deer. In Greece they have three-headed dogs guarding the underworld; kinda scary. I prefer the deer. Although deer can gore you with their horns or stamp you with their pointy hooves. Beware the pointy hooves.

As you may have noticed, the candles were starting to melt. I was walking around taking pictures at about 8 am, but it was already sweltering. After about half-an-hour in the sun, I'm pretty sure I melted a little. I quickly made my way to 7-11 only to discover that they didn't have their slurpee machine running at 8:30 am! Life is just full of disappointments.

Ubol city has billed itself as a major tourist destination due to the candle festival, including a major statue of a candle in the city park.

It's huge.

This part of the monument has a life-size depiction of everyones' worst ocean nightmare. I don't know why someone would build this. It's like the entire Jaws movie in stature form. Terrifying.

I suggest the candle festival. It was amazing to see.