Thailand’s annual Loy Kratong festival was held on Sunday, the night of November’s full moon. I did hope to spend an evening enjoying the atmosphere and getting dozens of shots but I wasn’t really in the mood for it.  I ended up with just a few – enough to get me out of trouble.

During the evening, millions of people across the entire country go down to the nearest river to float their kratongs, small rafts made from a banana palm and decorated with flowers, a candle and incense. They believe this will bring them good luck throughout the year. In more recent years the gesture of floating a kratong has also become closely associated with romance so I bought myself the most beautiful kratong I could find and watched it float away, carrying my love to Klong Toey.

In Chiang Mai and the north, the festival is known as Yi Peng and lanterns are released into the night sky. This tradition has also now been adopted in Bangkok.