This is a travel vlog (YouTube) by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting their experience in Chiang Mai, Thailand during the full-moon lantern/krathong celebrations. The hosts explain there are two overlapping festivals that night — the tourist-oriented Yi Peng/Yi Ping mass lantern releases and the local Thai Loy Krathong (they spell it Loy Katong/Kitong in places) where people float decorated banana-leaf boats (katongs/krathongs) on the river. The video includes a classroom visit where the hosts make katongs with local students and a temple ceremony with monks and candlelight, followed by crowd scenes at the river where lanterns and katongs are released.
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We are currently in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and we are so excited to be.
Here during this magical time where they're celebrating the lantern festival.
If you've ever heard of the lantern festival, it's probably because you've seen pictures of it online or on Instagram where they have these massive magical lantern releases.
Like thousands, maybe millions. It's crazy, but actually there's a lot more than that going on here.
There's actually two festivals being celebrated on the same night because it's the full moon night.
The big beautiful lantern festival with thousands of lanterns lighting up the sky is actually a Chinese holiday. It's called Yi Ping.
But the other festival they're celebrating, the.
Local Thai one, is called Loy Katong, where they set these beautiful little flower things in the river.
If you want to celebrate Yiping and be a part of the big massive lantern releases that you've seen, you have to pay 100 plus dollars to go out into a field somewhere with thousands of other tourists. And then at the same time they say, go, and you all release your lanterns. It sounds absolutely beautiful, but it's not really the local thing to do. So tonight we've decided to head into the city and we are going to be celebrating the Thai festival of Loy Kitong.
We never would have figured all of.
This out without our friend Patty. He is a teacher here and he.
Has celebrated this holiday multiple times.
And he is basically like a local.
So we are actually going to be going around with him tonight. He is going to be showing us the ropes of the festival and we are super grateful for that. But our preparation for the festival actually started yesterday when he invited us into his classroom to make a katong by.
Hand with his kids.
Hello.
Welcome to my classroom.
We're in Mr. Patty's class.
What's your name? Martha.
Martha's gonna help us make our katongs. This is a banana trunk. It needs to look like this. We have to wrap it up. Then eventually it'll look like this. And this is what we're gonna float down the river tomorrow night. You don't have to teach us how. We don't know what we're doing. These guys do. What do we do first? How do we get stuff like this?
So we cut the banana leaf and put it on the banana face.
Are we doing it right?
Yeah.
Way to go, girls.
Arts and crafts were never my strong suit in school.
So some of the kids in this classroom already have YouTube channels.
We're subscribed, obviously.
Looks like you're really concentrating.
I can way More into this than I planned on.
How's yours going, Mr. Patty?
We're going for, like, an abstract casso.
I tried my hardest to make the best katong in class, but somehow. Somehow the kids are busy.
No, that's really good.
Could have done it without her help.
Good job.
Thank you, teacher.
A B minus.
What?
This is A plus.
A plus.
Yes.
I like it.
Yeah.
Oh, there's a filter. I love it. It looks like I'm wearing lipstick.
Can I take a picture with you?
Yes, you may.
Signing autographs.
So now we have our katong, and.
We are about to head into the.
Old city to join the festivities.
I'm so excited. I think it turned out pretty cute. Nate did most of it, but I was playing with the kids the whole time.
Wow.
This city is so beautiful right now. The sun is setting and these lanterns are everywhere. And some people have written their wishes.
On them, which is really cool.
So we're gonna spend the next little while exploring the old city, Expl. Exploring the temples. Just seeing what's happening here before we head down to the river to release our katong.
It's a workout holding this thing.
I think you can actually buy the katongs down by the river. Might have been a better idea, but.
Not quite as meaningful. Yeah.
So we've met up with Paddy at the Three Kings monument. He is an excellent teacher and also a budgeteer.
We met up in India. We had the best time ever. And I said to them, hey, if you ever need to do one of your work weeks or work month, why don't you try and make it into Chiang Mai? And I said, are you staying for the lantern festival or Yi Bing? And you guys were like, what? And then they kind of changed their plans. You guys, you're gonna absolutely have so much appreciation for this place. Chiang Mai on Loi Patong is so special. Put it on your bucket list.
I can't wait.
I can't wait for you guys reaction as well.
We're super grateful for you taking us around tonight.
I'm so excited.
Can I get another kiss? He loves it when I kiss him.
On our way to the river, we passed by this temple and thought we would go inside and check it out.
Out back there is this beautiful garden full of all of these colorful lanterns hanging from the trees. And there were monks lighting candles all over the place.
And now the mount.
In the handles.
There was this huge group of people standing around, and it seemed like they were all waiting on something. We weren't in any huge rush, so we decided to Get a good spot too. But we had no idea what we were waiting for.
So we waited.
And waited.
We had no idea if this mysterious gathering was going to be worth the wait. But two hours later.
It.
Sam.
That was incredible. We had no clue that was happening tonight.
We just got so lucky to stumble upon that temple.
And like, I'm trying to think, think so I'm not saying this lightly, but.
Probably the most beautiful ceremony that I've ever seen.
It was really beautiful. The guy that was singing like, it was such a unique song. I've never heard anything like it. It was amazing.
And it doesn't get more picturesque than that. Like all the candles reflecting off the water with all the monks in their orange.
Yeah, what are those called? Or togas. Yeah, like a toga. It was actually still going on, but we're having extra stream FOMO seeing all of the lanterns being released by the river. So that's where we're going now.
K's ready to get rid of her.
Guitar behind the scenes.
This is exciting.
You can just see all of the lanterns originating from one place. And so there's just like a herd of. Of people walking down this road in the direction of where all the lanterns are taking off.
I feel like we're in a parade.
It's absolutely beautiful. The atmosphere is fantastic.
Everybody's happy, everybody's on the road. Even though the road's not closed, there are cars right here.
I pictured this really, like, serene moment.
Where everybody was being really quiet and.
Letting off their lanterns.
But instead it's just chaos.
Way too soon.
It's the wind.
I'm so scared.
I don't like this at all. I'm not having fun.
Oh, gosh.
Wow.
There's no. We're noobs.
Sorry.
My dad took. I love it. Look, it's our YouTube channel.
Do it.
Okay, so I think I've gotten a mannerism from you.
Okay.
What is it? You do your hand like this and I think I watched too many of your videos and I've started doing it.
Yeah, you gotta be animating.
Yeah.
Like this all the time. Otherwise it's just a big boring, isn't it?
