Celebrating Loy Krathong

This weekend we celebrated our first Thai holiday, Loy Krathong, with our friends Suwat and Tanya. The day actually began with us being woken up by a procession outside our hotel in Hua Hin. A large group of Thai men, women and children were singing, dancing and playing drums as they moved down the street. They grabbed Eric and were trying to convince him to dance with them down the street!

One of the things on my list of things to see in Thailand was monkeys so after breakfast, Suwat took us up to a monastery overlooking Hua Hin. I forgot the name of the monastery, so I dubbed it "Monkey Monastery"

Looks so peaceful, hard to believe it is full of monkeys!

Maybe I should rethink my idea of taking a monkey home as a pet...

Someone left food in the back of their pickup truck- big mistake.

Awwww... baby monkeys!

It was scary watching the monkeys fight over the corn cobs on the ground.

Meditating monkey

I can't believe this monkey is giving me the bird!

After leaving the Monkey Monastery we left Hua Hin and headed back to Bangkok. Along the way we stopped at the Amphawa Floating Market to buy our krathong. This is the first floating market we've been to in Thailand. It was cool to see boats moving up and down the water, selling food to people sitting along the docks.

Our krathong

At dusk we made our way to the Rama VIII Bridge in Bangkok in order to release our krathong into the Chao Phraya River. It took us about an hour to travel the short distance to the river, trying to avoid hitting the throngs of people making their way to the river. Once we finally made it to the river, we were hit with a wall of light- with lanterns floating over head and fireworks exploding over the river. We then lit the candle and incense on our krathong and send out worries floating down the river, to be immediately scooped up by men in boats right offshore. Oh, well- it's the thought that counts!