Loi Krathong in Chiang Mai City

November 1986

Loi Krathong in 1986, Chiang Mai

The Loy Krathong Festival is Thailand's most beautiful and meaningful celebration.

It is a festival of light, of public fireworks and millions of candle flames flickering and moving in gentle water currents.

Loy Krathong takes place on the full moon in November.

Loi Krathong Parade at night through the Chiang Mai streets.

Each village sent their decorated car with color lanterns, flowers and big krathong some village also has the traditional dancing and music band to joint the parade as homage to Lord Buddha and Goddess of River.

By the end of the evening, there are hundreds of flickering lights bobbing up and down on the water.

This Festival is a 13th century Sukhothai tradition of Brahmin origin to give thanks to the Goddess of water and to seek forgiveness for misdeeds.

This tradition is strong in agricultural societies where the river gives life and sustenance in a close bond between Man and Nature.

During the evening, many people come to the river to float their krathongs. People usually make a wish at the same time. They believe this will bring them good luck.

As each individual's krathong floats away, it is time to say goodbye to old regrets and to look forward to a brighter future.

The krathongs (photo above) contain a flower, a candle and three incense sticks. The sticks are lighted before being placed on the water.

The Akka Village

November 1986

I have long been interested on the tribal people in the North Thailand and while in Chang Mai I took the opportunity to joint a guided 2Days 1Night hill track to an Akka Village.

The journey :

By mini bus from Chieng Mai to a small village;
From the small village by elephant up to a hill station;
From the hill station walk up to a Akka Village for the night

A panoramic view of the Akka village where our tour group spend the night. The tourist hut (hotel) is at the right hand side.

The children (in the middle of above photo) don't go to school and it didn't look as though they were doing any agricultural works. But it good they do not ask for “Money” like children in other tourists corrupted area I been to.

This Akka village seemed untainted by tourists. They keep their traditional natural feel without any false acts.

The Aka generally prefer to live along mountain ridges at high altitudes of approximately 1,000 meters and they rarely moved south. The Aka houses are on low stilts, with a large porch leading into a square living area with a stove. The roof is steeply pitched.

Our group consists only 6 tourist on 3 elephants. Each elephant has a care taker.

With an Akka rice farmer (photo above) beside her rice farm.

The Akka are shifting cultivators. They cultivate dry rice for consumption and grow corn, millet, peppers, beans, garlic, sesame and other varieties of vegetables as additional subsistence crops.

Crop production is often inadequate to meet their needs.

The Akka are well known to tourists for their extraordinary costumes and exotic appearance. They originate from Tibetan Highlands.

Over the years they left their homeland and migrated south to Yunnan, North Burma and Laos, and have only recently entered North Thailand, 150 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akha_people

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