Loi Krathong & Yi Peng

What actually happens

Floating the krathong — hair and nail clippings offered as a letting-go. Khom loi — northern sky lanterns released in mass, in batches, all evening.

• 01Floating the krathong — hair and nail clippings offered as a letting-go.
• 02Khom loi — northern sky lanterns released in mass, in batches, all evening.
• 03Nopphamat queen contest and the Lanna procession through the old city.
• 04Temple worship — the wai and the merit-making at Wat Phan Tao before dark.

Sound of the crowd

Lanna salo and fiddle ensembles, and the northern kantrum folk tradition. Fireworks and drum processions accompany each lantern release, and the whole old city is loud until well past midnight.

How it survived

Attributed in its modern form to Queen Nopphamat in the nineteenth-century Lanna court, who floated a raft of her own design. Chiang Mai's Yi Peng lantern release has grown from a handful of participants to a ticketed city-wide event since the 1990s.