A Thousand Points of Light

New Year’s Eve is an event in Chiang Mai.  We had two objectives; 1) Find a place to eat that we didn’t have to wait for an hour or more to eat and 2) Stay awake until midnight.

As we get older it has become harder and harder to make it to midnight.  We have had more than one New Year’s Eve party in California where everyone watched the ball drop in NYC at 9PM PST and call it shortly afterwards. 

We assured ourselves that this year would be different because we read that in Chiang Mai people release thousands of lanterns at midnight, floating into the sky, each carrying a wish for the new year.  So we bought our lanterns and candles so we would be set.   We knew that we could do it.

We found a pizza place for dinner run by a guy from Lake Como and it was pretty darn good.  We had been pretty good about experiencing the foods of Thailand and Vietnam, but I have to admit a good pizza was very welcome on New Year’s Eve.  And while my Negroni was served with my pizza rather than before, it still tasted good.

It was now about 8:30pm and time to take an advanced look at the area around Tha Phae Gate which we understood to be the center of the activities.  Even before getting there we saw at least 100 lanterns in the sky.  As we got closer, we were right there as people were buying lanterns from vendors and launching them.  There was now a stream of hundreds of lanterns floating up into the sky.  There was a very slight breeze that blew this river of light towards the north.

Of course, we had left our lanterns back at the hotel to protect them.  Not surprisingly they are pretty delicate as they need to be light to be able to float with just a candle.  We walked back and retrieved ours and grabbed a lighter that I had picked up earlier in at a 7-Eleven.

We found a place along the water that wasn’t in the center of the crowd.  The water is lined with trees, but this spot had one missing so there was a good clear route to the sky.  As we started watching and figuring out how to launch them one of the vendors asked to borrow my lighter--”no problem”.  When he returned it he showed us a trick to pinch the circular candle in the four places where you light it.  Karma is good.

Holding the lantern upside down you light the candle in 4 places, then quickly invert it, being careful not to catch it on fire as you flip it.  Resting it on the ground to build up the heat, you raise it carefully after a couple of minutes.  You want to toss it into the air, but just a gentle release is all it takes.  (Don’t forget to make a New Year’s wish.)  The lantern takes off fast, joining other lanterns rising up into the sky.

We launched all five of ours successfully and had one left.  We decided to give it to a couple who were just watching everyone else launch theirs.  They were appreciative and we watched them launch theirs—it’s got be good karma.

The reflection of the lanterns in the water coupled with the river of lanterns floating up into the sky is a sight we will never forget.  What a great way to launch 2019!