Phi Ta Khon Day Two

We were probably a tad overconfident after yesterday’s experience when we had little difficulty getting into town and finding parking. This time around, we hit traffic soon after we left our hotel, and it took us roughly 1.5 hours to get into town and find parking, which we found in a field behind an auto repair facility. We then walked to the parade route.

Today’s crowds were significantly heavier than yesterday’s, and, to complicate matters, there was a motorcycle convention in the vicinity, so the main road was swamped with thousands of motorbikes who were there to rev up and make noise. The noise they made was really annoying.

It took us quite a while to walk to Wat Phon Chai and onwards to a vantage point along the parade route. The parade looked different from what people who attended last year posted on social media. It started with a color guard and a float, after which there was a contingent of uniformed personnel. Several other floats, starting with one carrying the parade king and queen, followed. Interspersed among the floats were the figures of the couple who saved the town.

After the parade, everyone wandered down towards Wat Phon Chai or to the main road. Information was scarce and it seemed as if people - us included - didn't know where to go. It took a while to get there due to the slow moving crowd. I worried about the potential for a stampede and I was constantly looking for escape routes. We finally got to the main road and plotted our next move while drinking coffee. Paul and I didn’t want to deal with the crowds to get back to Wat Phon Chai. We read online that there would be launching of homemade rockets to bring rain, but we got conflicting information in real time. Two people, including someone from the local tourist authority sent to survey tourists, told us that there would be no rocket launching because we were already in the rainy season and they did the rocket launching last month to bring rain. With this information, we decided to walk back to the car and not deal with the crowds.

During our walk back to the car, however, we saw one homemade rocket, and a woman there told us they were about to offer up some prayers and then they would make their way to a field behind Wat Phon Chai where there would be a limited rocket launching ceremony. With this new information, we decided to take a backroad into town to find a vantage point to watch the rockets. Alas, this was not to be as other people had the same idea and the road was backed up. We decided to turn around and eat lunch at a cafe we saw along the backroad. Rather amusingly, the cafe name - Woori Cafe - suggested it was Korean, but they served Thai food.

I was disappointed by this turn of events, but, I was not ready to face the crowds again. In any case, we didn’t hear any rockets as we were dining and making our way back, so the event was either really small in scale if it had progressed as advertised, or it had been delayed.Read more