Pitchit Boat Festival

This weekend I went to my friend Katie's site Pitchit for an English Camp. This was also the same weekend of a very famous boat festival in her town. As you have seen from my pictures, many festivals and celebrations revolve around the water in Thailand because it is such an important part of their daily lives. Below are some pictures of the opening ceremonies. These are all replications of royal boats. That means these are the type of boats that in the past might have carried the king when he went to travel by river.


The boat above is my favorite boat. You see this paticular boat in a lot of pictures in Thailand.

The pictures below are of the opening ceremony. I was in an area where officials were meant to be, so I got very close to the action. These pictures of the men are of them doing very high and deep "wais" ,or bows, to the king, while the kings song was being played. The last picture is basically what most people come to see at the boat festival...the boat races. As you can see these boats are very long and thin and hold many men. Its a bit like crew on more canoe style.