May - June:
Rocket Festivals
July 27th:
Khao Phansa Day - The Candle Festival
August 12th:
Queen Sirikit's Birthday - Mothers' Day
The rocket festivals take place at the time of the beginning of the rainiy season. They are practiced in the whole of the Isaan (North East Thailand) region, and the exact dates will vary from one village to the next. Typically, the events will last several days. On the first day, there is a parade where highly decorated dummy rockets are taken around the town on equally exquisitely decorated floats. This is accompanied by the usual Isaan music and dancing so typical of this area of Thailand.
From the second day onwards, the real rockets are fired. A short description of most Thai festivals tends to belie the massive scale on which they occur. The rocket festivals are no exception. When talking about rockets, one might imagine western style 'fireworks', however this is not even close. The rockets fired during these festivals, though "home made", are truly massive. Some can be as large as 8 meters long and reach altitudes of tens of thousands of meters.
The rocket festivals are presumed to have evolved from pre-Buddhist fertility rights, held to encourage the coming of the rains. Now however, it is more about building the biggest and best rocket! People within the villages compete against each other to build the rocket that can climb to the greatest height. Villagers gamble on which rocket will stay in the air the longest. There can be as many as 50 rockets fired in a day at each event.
It is also regarded as a time to party priory to the hard work in the fields that comes with the beginning of the rainy season, and planting of crops. This is clearly evident, as there is an electric party atmosphere and as always, food, drink and music feature heavily in the festivities.
The manufacturing process of the rockets used during the festival is fine art and draws on years of experience in rocket manufacturing. You can find more information, photos and vidoes on the website of Nong Khai's number one "Bang Fai Engineer" on his website: www.norasingbangfai.tht.in
