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SOMEWHERE out there across the black tide of the Mekong River is
Laos. Other
than a full moon rising, there's not much to see. "Be patient," says Poum,
my guide, as we watch and wait along with several thousand others on this
river bank at Nakhon Phanom in northeast Thailand.
 Upriver,
I spot something glowing – make that blazing – in the distance. It is huge.
With almost hypnotic slowness, the apparition drifts into view. It is a low
boat, perhaps 50m long, supporting a 20m flaming image composed (I am told
later) of 19,999 small lanterns depicting the Thai king and queen and a
phoenix-like garuda.
This huge vessel drifts past our bank, then disappears downstream like a
fiery ghost. Another boat, of equal intricacy and size, follows, then
another and another. In Thai, these are known as rua fai, but English
approximations such as "illuminated boats" or "fire boats" hardly do justice
to these spectacular artistic conflagrations.
The original rua fai were modest, candlelit rafts that carried offerings
of flowers, incense and a little money to other villages downstream. The
fire in the boats had two functions: to symbolically burn away the previous
year's suffering and to petition the nature deities for future good weather,
long life and prosperity.
About a decade ago, Thailand's tourist authorities saw the potential of
the fire boats, if super-sized, to become the spectacular focus of a
festival that would attract visitors to Nakhon Phanom. The Lai Rua Fai (or
Illuminated Boat Procession) Festival, held on the full moon of the 11th
lunar month (late October to early November), heralds the end of Buddhist
Lent and the rainy season, as well as the beginning of the harvest. As
Nakhon Phanom's big event of the year it sees the town population swell from
40,000 to many times that number, with Thais flooding in from
Bangkok and
across the surrounding Isaan region for parades, ceremonies and musical
performances.
Nakhon Phanom, 735km northeast of Bangkok, is known as the City of Hills
although, curiously, all the hills are on the other side of the river in
Laos. During the Vietnam War, the US Air Force maintained a large air base
there. Airmen affectionately nicknamed Nakhon Phanom "Naked Fanny",
describing it tongue-in-cheek as "the worst base we had in Thailand, but the
best one we had in Vietnam".
During the festival, we are blessed by monks, dine at Mekong-side
restaurants and watch a grand street parade of wax model Buddhist temples
(which don't melt in the midday heat, even though we almost do).
There are dragon-boat races by day and fireworks by night. Even breakfast
is an event: scrumptious Chinese doughnuts and red bean dumplings from a
street stall, washed down with cafe boran ("ancient coffee").
Life in rural Isaan, Thailand's driest and poorest region, can be
grindingly hard for most of the year but, come festival time, everyone in
Nakhon Phanom pulls out all stops to celebrate.
The boats, painstakingly constructed by local communities, burn in brief
glory. Having passed by us, they will come ashore downstream to expire like
dying swans. Next morning they will be a ragged flotilla lining the shore,
each boat reduced to a bare hull supporting a billboard-sized frame and up
to 30,000 smouldering little kerosene lanterns.
The fire boats, 13 in all, continue to drift past us like images by an
oriental Turner, lighting the Mekong night with their fiery tableaus of
garuda, Ganesh and nagas (serpents), as well as motor cars and more royals.
A few years ago one boat caught fire, hull and all, and the evening's
spectacle was enhanced further by the sight of the crew leaping for their
lives into the river.
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