At the beginning of May 2010, I stayed with some friends in the small Isan town of Phang Khon not far from Sakhon Nakhon and the Laos border at the time of the local Rocket Festival (Hae Bang Fai).
When I first heard the words Bang Fai - it sounded remarkably like 'Bun Fight' - it turned out to be that and more. I had worked out with a Thai friend that Bang Fai meant something like 'fireworks', so I was expecting a firework display. It turned out that the Bang Fai were enormous home-made rockets made of bamboo or plastic tubing, packed with gunpowder, and up to three meters in length - more like miniature ballistic missiles.At the beginning of May 2010, I stayed with some friends in the small Isan town of Phang Khon not far from Sakhon Nakhon and the Laos border at the time of the local Rocket Festival (Hae Bang Fai).
When I first heard the words Bang Fai - it sounded remarkably like 'Bun Fight' - it turned out to be that and more. I had worked out with a Thai friend that Bang Fai meant something like 'fireworks', so I was expecting a firework display. It turned out that the Bang Fai were enormous home-made rockets made of bamboo or plastic tubing, packed with gunpowder, and up to three meters in length - more like miniature ballistic missiles.
A friend from Udon Thani tells me that, for their festival, the revellers need permission from the local Air Traffic Control before they can launch.
Hae Bang Fai is a Lao rain-making Festival celebrated most famously in Yasothon but also in many towns and villages throughout the Isan Region and the Lao PDR. Some villages prefer the Hae Nang Maew festival, in which a yowling cat is paraded around the village in a basket, the villagers hoping presumably that the gods will take pity on the poor creature and send them rain - at which point I presume they will release the cat.
Many businesses close down for the days of the festival including the lady who did our laundry - compelling us to stay an extra, not unpleasureable, day.
Merit Making
On the first morning of the festival a merit making took place in each of the villages surrounding Phang Khon. At each village center money trees were assembled under the supervision of the village headman (Phuyai Bahn): 20 and 100 Baht bills were inserted into bamboo spills, and the spills pushed into the soft pith of coconuts where the hard shell had been removed from one end. We saw several of these 'Money Trees' being carried in the grand parade later.
The 'Money Tree' can be seen at merit-making events throughout Thailand.
Grand Parade
In the afternoon there was a grand parade through the town. The Lord and Lady of the festival came first, perched somewhat precariously on a life-size model elephant, standing (also somewhat precariously) on the back of a three-wheeled cart.
Large pickup-mounted floats followed, often in the shape of Thai longboats, but with huge not-always imitation rockets, often crowned with a dragon head, stretching from the front to well beyond the tail of the vehicle.
Local schools and colleges provided costume parades; vans crammed with amplifiers and huge speakers blared popular Luk Tung and Mor Lam songs for dancers in traditional Isan kilts. Boys dressed as girls and middle aged ladies dressed as tarts provided comedy. Towards the end of the afternoon most of the boys, and some of the girls, appeared to be drunk. The noise was deafening.
The older ladies of the district clad in traditional silk top and sarong marched more decorously, bearing the earlier prepared money trees as an offering to the local temple.
