On Loy Krathong day last year, I went to celebrate this famous festival with my girlfriend, Tai, at my grandmother’s house. We went there with my parents and my brother in the evening. When we arrived there, I took Tai to see my grandmum to pay her respect. Then we went to the temple to walk around the fair.

We walked around for a while before we sat down at a noodle shop to eat. I went to order some noodles and then came back to sit at the table. Then Tai asked me about the festival. I told her what I knew from reading an English book called Thai Ways. I had been doing some research for my Thailand Life web site.

Loy Krathong Day is usually celebrated on the full moon night of the twelfth lunar month, which is usually October or November. Loy means “to float” and Krathong means “leaf cup”. The reason for Thai people to have this festival is to thank the mother of the water, Phra Mae Kongka, for giving us water as well as to apologize for polluting the water. Also, in the past, this is the day that boys and girls went out to meet and float their krathongs to predict their relationship in the future.

After I finished telling her about the festival, the noodles arrived. So we stopped talking and started to eat. While we were eating our noodles, Tai paused and asked me how can krathongs predict the relationship for a couple. I told her that if the two krathongs float together without moving away from each other then that means this couple will have a happy future. But if one of their krathongs floats away or bumps into another krathong, then that means they will have a sad future and maybe they will break up.

She stopped eating for a few seconds to think about something then started to eat again. I didn’t bother to ask her what she was thinking about, I just kept eating my noodles. After we finished, we went to walk around by the river to watch the temple boys, or dek wat, playing with some firecrackers. They seemed to enjoy the crackers very much, especially the ones that made such a loud noise.

The full moon was shining above our heads. I looked at the time on my watch. It read 10:15pm. It was getting a bit late so I told Tai that we should go to loy krathong. We bought a krathong from the first shop we stopped at. The krathongs we bought were made from banana leaves. We didn’t buy the ones that are made from styrofoam because they won’t decompose in the water.

We held our krathongs carefully as we walked along lighting the incense sticks and the candle. We kept walking ahead slowly and then went down the steps to the river. I felt more excited every step I took towards the river. I wished that our krathongs would float smoothly together on the water. At that second, I didn’t think about anything else. I just wished and wished and wished.

Finally I was standing on the bottom steps with Tai. I looked at her face and she looked back at me and gave me a smile. I smiled back as we crouched down together. We put our krathongs very close to each other then we made a wish. After we finished, we pushed our krathongs forward slowly. We watched the krathongs float for a few minutes then quickly walked up the steps to watch them go. We were very happy after we knew for sure that our krathongs didn’t bump into others or sink. We looked at each other’s faces and smiled at the same time. Then we walked back to my grandmum’s house happily holding hands.

I hope that our krathongs will float together again this year when we go down to the river tonight. I have a feeling that this year will be a special one for us.