Day 28: New Years in Chiang Mai

Thais can chose from three new years. The first is the western new year, the second the lunar new year followed by much of the rest of Asia. Finally, in April or thereabouts is the Thai New Year.

Spending the western new year in Chiang Mai was extraordinary. Of course there were fireworks. And they were great, all the better from them having been launched just 50m (150ft) away from me at the Tha Pae gate. But what made new years in Chiang Mai truly special were the sky lanterns. Evidently this is a tradition all across Asia, but Chiang Mai as the capital of the former Lanna kingdom has a especially strong tradition of sending them up within Thailand.

These are simple paper lanterns with some kind of compressed wood-shaving torch, presumably soaked in some accelerant. You light the torch, making very sure to keep the rest of the lantern away from it. Once it builds up enough warm air inside the lantern, the lantern floats up into the sky, glowing with orange flame.

This is beautiful enough on its own. And at the hostel where I stayed we launched out share, sending them off into the starry sky. We had only one Hindenburg-esque disaster. I sent mine into the air with my wishes for 2015.

What makes the night magical is that everyone does it. This sends rivers of lanterns up into the black. Unlike fireworks, they move slowly and so all these tendrils of warm yellow dots curl up from the ground and hang in the clear air. The effect is like hundreds of fat orange stars appearing in the night. It feels magical.

Magical, and hard to photograph. Though they seem bright to your eyes once you’ve adjusted, there just isn’t enough light for most cameras and lenses. And the contrast between these faint lights and the moon is vast. So without very specialized gear you’re not going to take excellent pictures.

But you will form excellent memories once you stop trying. Like mine walking back after the festivities to catch just the right angle to see a trail of lanterns seeming to stretch up to the waxing moon. Or dripping down from the earth a trickle of moonlight. An astonishingly beautiful sight and a perfect way to ring in a new year so pregnant with the possibilities of transformation.

Coda: What Goes Up…

What’s the fate of these lanterns we sent into the night? Well, it seems they just burn out and fall gently to ground. This created a lot of waste of course — including a non-biodegradable metal frame. Watching a light turn grey in the night and begin its slow descent is an unexpectedly fascinating part of the experience.