Naga Fireball Festival

This weekend, Ming, Lara & I headed over to Sam's house (30 minutes away from our district) to stay the weekend for the annual Naga Fireball Festival. Every October, crowds of people from as close as Nong Khai and residing districts and as far as Bangkok congregate along the Mekong river to witness a legendary fireball that's shot up from the river known to be an offering from the Naga serpent that's lurking among the waters. Apparently the fireballs are supposed to form steps on which the Buddha descends from heaven.

Earlier on in the day, we were able to alleviate ourselves from the heat by visiting a nearby pool and also walked along the river where several street food vendors were posted. I'm beginning to get used to this easy access to street food (and not to mention, not having to cook!). Later as the sun began to set, the crowds multiplied as everyone came together to witness this yearly event. We sat in the bushes for an hour in attempts to see this fireball that's said to have brilliant hues, but we were out of luck and ended up almost deaf from the fireworks instead. We did, however get to be a part of this festival by lighting large lanterns that flew into the night sky. It's kind of fascinating how the physics of these lanterns work. I'm not quite sure how they go abouts with the clean up because these lanterns just flew into the night and with due time, eventually burn up and fade. They must fall into the water or something.









Anyway, before going into town, we continued to wander along the river into a nearby temple. I got to hit the biggest gong I've ever come into contact with. The gamelan gong is no where near the size of this thing!




... we also went into town and walked into a carnival where I then discovered that Thai people have quite the imagination when creating carnie-games. I paid 5 baht to play this game where if I threw a basket over selected items I instantly win that item. That simple. The items included in these rows were: liters of sodas and a bags of various flavors of chips.

& guess freakin, what....

I won!... a bag of hot dog flavored chips.

Here's a video that Lara recorded of my impossible win! Throwing that basket over that bag was so strenuous, lemme tell you--- I almost thought I didn't have it. Lol.



The Ferris wheel Lara and I were screaming at the top of our lungs in due to the abundance of bugs surrounding us.

Another awesome thing that happened was our very first encounter with a baby elephant! It was quite the encounter... I was just browsing through the market near the carnival and I hear this shriekish-like noise, it didn't sound like the familiar trumpeting that elephants normally produce. Pestered but curious, I awaken from my stupor, turn around, and the elephant was right behind me, passing by. Lara and I didn't want to miss the chance to feed the elephant so we naively bought stalks of vegetables from it's owner. We didn't even know how much the bag of food cost, we literally gave 20 baht to the person... who knows, it could have been just 5, but we just gave whatever we had in our hands. Man, throwing money around like it's nothing!

Here's a video of the baby elephant:


This weekend was exciting, considering the change of environment. It's great to have friends here who are so hospitable! Lara and I are already planning our weekend away in Laos! Tubing in Vang Vieng seems to be the next on our to-see/to-do list. Till then!