Ok, so Sunday the 21st has arrived and it is the day of 'Loy Krathong' or 'The Water Festival'.
The day started at 3am for Clem and myself getting up and going into the college to have our hair, make-up and costume done ready to be part of the town parade on the college float. 3am! That's the middle of the night. Anyway, we got up when the sky was still dark and we could see the stars and went into a room to wait for the make-up, hair and costume people to turn up.
We never understood why we had to get up at 3am and have 3 people do 4 peoples hair, make-up and costume ready for 8am. We guessed that there would be a fair few of us to have to be in so early but in the end, there was only 7 of us! 5 hours for 8 of us to be done up. I had 3 inches of make-up put on and my hair was done crazily with two buns and a crown.
This costume was a lot nicer than the gold frumpy thing we had to wear for the retirement party. Once we were all finished, we were all taken to the beginning of the parade to the SISAT Technic float. It was huge, pink and driven by a mini tractor. Four of us sat on the front of it waving and smiling to all the people we passed.
We also found out that it was a competition so when we saw the judges we had to 'Wai' them as well. People were so amazed to see some 'farang' dressed up in Thai dress on a float. We had so many pictures taken of us and so many people wanted to takes pictures with us as well. My cheeks had an amazing workout from constantly smiling. They were aching so much by the end of a couple of hours. Once it was over we went back to get changed so we could watch the rest of the parade.
It was so hot during the day and it showed with the amount of people who fainted. They were dropping like flies! Thankfully, there were a number of people around ready to help them all with water and smelling stuff and fans so it all ended well.
In the evening, we went for dinner at our host families house and then went to the temple.
We also set off lanterns inbetween eating food as we just picked what we wanted from the mass amount of food on the two tables.
Once our bellies were so full they were bursting, we went to the temple to float our 'Krathongs'. There were so many people all trying to get onto this little boat! It was rocking so much at some points I thought we were going to capsize! Anyway, we made it to the middle of the river and let our 'Krathongs'
Once we were all back on dry land, we went back home via the lucky numbers thing. We payed 10 Baht and picked a piece a paper to find out what he won. The prizes we little drinks and sweets to rice cookers and bikes.
All I managed to win was a pink drink and a small bag of potato sticks. Nothing compared to P-Pui's rice cooker that she won! She was so lucky compared to everyone else. Well that's the day of 'Loy Krathong' a once a year thing so probably a once in a lifetime experience, and it was a good one. :)
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