Flowers on the water

The Lotus Giving Festival returns to Samut Prakan’s Bang Phli district today with music, cultural shows, games and food livening up the often drab industrial estates as residents mark the end of the three-month Buddhist Lent. 

Much of the celebration is centred around Wat Bang Phli Yai (also known as Wat Luang Phorto) and the floating market.

The Lotus Festival harks back to the days when the river was a focal point of daily life and in many ways romanticises Bang Phli, which was once home to endless lotus fields, rice paddies and fish farms. The rustic beauty gave way to industrial estates the best part of 30 years ago when Thailand switched from a mainly agrarian economy to a newly industrialised country.

Yet the spirit of the lotus fields has managed to survive, at least along with Samrong Canal where every October the local community gathers for the Lotus Giving Festival.

This year, the most important part of the celebration – the merit-making – takes place at daybreak next Tuesday when thousands of devotees, lotus flowers in their hands, will line both sides of the canal as they wait for the huge Buddha image to arrive by boat so they can shower it with flowers.

It tends to be a bit of a hit-or-miss affair because there are always too many people trying to throw the lotuses into one boat. 

People are everywhere, on the small towpath as well on the wooden bridges over the canal. You don’t walk, you just go with the flow, as the crowd keeps pushing you ahead.

Romance is in the air too as on both sides of the canal young people try out their chances with the boy or girl of their dreams.

“Many young men try to pick up the lotuses from beautiful women,” says a fish farmer who lives behind Suvarnabhumi Airport, recalling her younger days around Bang Phli.

 “If you receive a flower from a girl, there’s a chance to win her heart. She’s probably your soulmate.”

The Lotus Giving Festival also features cultural shows that bring back memories of the olden days when canal life, religion and the community lived in harmony. 

There’s phleng rua folk music nightly as well as old-time games like saba thoi, saba bon, a tug-of-war, beauty contests, an eating contest, a boat show and races.

And, of course, this being a festival, there will be plenty of food, like traditional desserts, curries and barbecued seafood.

 

Blossoms and bouquets

 

The festival runs from tonight through October 9 at Wat Bang Phli Yai in Samut Prakan. 

The merit-making event, when people throw offering lotus blossoms into the boat carrying the Buddha image gets underway at around 6am on Tuesday.

The temple is a short walk from the Big C store on Theparak Road.