By 6.30 pm I was on my way to the main event that night which was the Ms Noppamas beauty contest. The contest is named after the favorite concubine of the then-king of Sukhothai, for whom Ms Noppamas made the first loy krathong.

The stage was beautifully lit and in the sky you could see the full moon. There were many lanterns hanging as well. At around 7.30 pm and intermittently thereafter, the sky changed color with the fireworks.

The program didn’t actually start until it was almost 8 o’clock but I needed to have a good seat for my photography. I had both my Nikon still camera and my Sony cybershot (primarily for video-recording) and a tripod. However, I could only use a camera one at a time and my Sony’s battery drained even before the start of the show, so I had no video of the beauty contest. There were 20 contestants, each accompanied by a girl dancer. At the beginning each of the girl dancers and the contestants floated their krathongs on a makeshift fountain in front of the stage.

Then each beauty contestant spoke (in Thai only, so I couldn’t really understand what they were saying) before sashaying before the judges. Once all the 20 contestants had spoken, I left at 9.30 as I still had to go to the bus terminal to catch a bus to Pilok. As I was leaving, crowds were still coming in. The pedestrian traffic was so heavy that it took me half an hour just to walk to the main entrance when it should take less than 10 minutes. There were also many other stage performances going on but I just didn’t have the time to watch each one.

Will I go back next year? Well, when I returned to Bangkok on November 18, two of my very good Thai friends promised to accompany me and be my interpreters and guides next year. But perhaps we will go to Chiang Mai so I can compare the Loy Krathong festivals.