Ubon Candle Festival & related photos .

[trubrit]

Went round the temples looking at the candle preparation. Discovered these young monks in Wat Cha Mankon.

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[trubrit]

Some more .

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[Aardvark]

Some lovely shots there TB =D>

[trubrit]

Wat Cha Monkon was the winning float of last years festival so was ineligible for the prize this year. You will see why from the attached photos . It was a magnificent display .

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[trubrit]

Some more .

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[trubrit]

Whilst at this temple the monks showed me the technique involved with the model making .The sculptures are made from a wire mesh covered in plaster to get the basic shape. Then layers of wax are applied by brush and spatula. The finished appearance is perfected by shaving the now hardened wax .You will see from the photos of the unfinished models I attache .

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[trubrit]

Some more of this impressive float .

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[lee]

Very impressive, the detail is amazing. I wonder what happens to them after the festival.

[trubrit]

Very impressive, the detail is amazing. I wonder what happens to them after the festival.

Well apparently they are towed back to the originating temple and left to decline naturally, which obviously means the wax just melts in the heat . The basic sub structure made of mesh and plaster is preserved and sometimes modifications are made but generally the overall appearance is kept . This is why a winning float is not allowed to take the prize in consecutive years .It gives the others the chance to catch up .
You will see when I post the photos of the parade some other temples efforts are also of a high standard but many just do not have the resources to compete . Nether less they still contribute to the overall majestic impression celebrating the arrival of Buddhist lent .

[trubrit]

Now to some more shots of other floats in the procession . Sorry for the quality but conditions were a photographers nightmare, ranging from thunderstorms , causing the white flecks on the lens , to blazing sunshine. Both of which caused the native population to hoist those B umbrellas , seemingly always right in front of me .

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[trubrit]

some more .

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[Laan Yaa Mo]

Amazing Thailand. The art work is incredible.

The naw nin (young novices) seem to be a friendly lot who like to mug for the camera.

I wonder how long it takes to make these wax creations?

[jimboLV]

The Ubon Candle Festival has got to be one of the premiere events in Thailand. It's a pity so many tourists come to Thailand and never get to see stuff like this. I only saw a very few farangs that looked like tourists. There were many beautiful girls and women in the parade. We were situated at the very end of the procession and you could see the exhaustion on these girls once they left the line of march. Many were met by their parents and you could see the pride on their faces. More pics to come.

[jimboLV]

Just couldn't stop taking pictures of the floats!

[jimboLV]

The floats don't last long in Thailand's heat, the wax melts pretty quickly. Here is a shot of the winning float after the morning procession. They are erecting screens to shade them from the sun. During the parade they had guys spraying the floats with ice water to keep them from melting.

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This one had already started to melt, even before the night procession.

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[trubrit]

A couple of faces
This is Miss Ubon .

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What a lovely smile.
And this guy isn't taking any chances with his Karma .

[bumper]

Ok so I cheated and it wasn't a bike ride. Darn I labeled and put description on every one. Didn't show up here.

So I will take a shot at it from here. The little girls are our housekeepers children and he first time they have been out of Udon. First time they have stayed in a hotel. First fro any big event like this. It was as much fun watching Ms. Fang and Paeng venture into the big world as the festival itself

In one photo you can see the frame work they use to create the wax float. You will see two photos of the guy placing the pieces one by on the float. The a box of the tiny pieces he is using. This one was using a pickup a a pull vehicle, other's used farm tractors.

I have to tell you have anything bigger then a 125 park it get a Tuk Tuk It would take you an hour to go block on anything bigger.

We got the worse Tuk Tuk I have ever ridden in engine wise. But, it had every gadget he could imagine on it. Bells, whistled , siren extra red lights you name it. I wouldn't have missed for the world. The guy was real cut up and made the ride fun

If you have never been to it I would add o the list of great things to do in Thailand.

If you guys want to see more of it let me know

[jai yen yen]

Great pictures Ray, Thanks for sharing.

[bumper]

Complete Album

http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u52/rayfisher23/

[jimboLV]

Well I hope this works. I think I've finally got Picasa figured out (it's not intuitive). So if you click on the link below you should see my album of pics from the Ubon Candle festival. This year I concentrated more on people so I've included some floats from last year's festival. I labeled them 2009 for historical accuracy.

http://picasaweb.google.com/10091329668 ... directlink