FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Throttling Loy Krathong

Throttling Loy Krathong

My dear Thai friends, I am sorry to inform you that henceforth and forevermore, Loy Krathong is cancelled.

Why? Because the water goddess, Mae Khongkha, that you purport to pay homage to during this festival, is dead.
It was a long, slow and agonising death, caused by suffocation from all the plastic waste, garbage and other pollutants that you throw by the hundreds of thousands of tonnes into her waters each year.
The death rattle was last night.
With some Thai friends we took our home-made banana palm krathongs to the Rayong River. The first thing I saw was a Mercedes pull up and a woman got out carrying a large and ostentatious polystyrene-based krathong. Later a group of revellers departed, leaving behind on the river bank all the rubbish from their picnic, polystyrene snack boxes, plastic cups and bottles, all ready to be washed into the river with the next rainfall.
Mae Khongkha took one last pitiful, whimpering gasp and gave up the struggle.
David Brown
Rayong
 

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