One celebrates Loy Katong by making a katong and floating (the word loy means float in Thai)in the river, ocean, swimming pool, or even your bathtub if that's your pleasure. The katong is round, with a base of Styrofoam, a section of banana tree trunk or bread. The katong is decorated with folded banana leaves, flowers, a candle and incense. Bread is becoming the preferred base, as it dissolves in water and can be eaten by the fish. Apparently the day after Loy Katong involves a lot of clean up of the rivers.
Loy Katong falls on the fifteenth day of the waxing moon in the twelfth lunar month. For those of us not so versed in waxing moon cycles, Loy Katong usually falls sometime in November.
This year the family went to Top's condo on the river to release our katongs. The kids made katongs in class, and I picked up some bread bases for Tim and I. We ended up getting a pretty late start, and by the time we ate and released our katongs it was 9:00 p.m. The kids loved staying up an hour past their bedtime.
Below are some pictures that I took. I tried to get some pictures of Tim releasing the katong's with the kids, but the setup made that really difficult. Well, enjoy my homage to poor picture composition.
Loy Katong Album
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