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The joy of Yi Peng, 10000 Lantern Release Festival – Chiang Mai

November 3, 2011 By James Clark 19 Comments

Yi Peng, 10000 Lantern Release Festival - Chiang Mai

Sometimes words and pictures just can’t describe events. The Yi Peng Festival was such an event for me. I have many friends in Chiang Mai who have been to Yi Peng before and told me it is one of the highlights of the year. With such an endorsement I had to see this for myself.

Yi Peng crowd with lanterns
[Yi Peng crowd with lanterns]

Yee Ping is known as the festival of 10000 Lantern Release, a Buddhist festival to make merit. In Buddhism, merit is the accumulation of good deeds, which is carried over to later in life (or in the next life). The accumulation of good karma basically (which you may have heard in a Buddhist quote).

With so many people attending, my fellow Yee Ping veteran friends advised to go out early to secure a good patch of grass.

Drew and Cole
[Hard work waiting around for the evening to come. Drew and Cole.]

By dusk the ceremony begins, which involves Buddhist chanting and meditation. Finally, an announcement is made to light the lanterns.

Dustin and Dale
[Yi Peng – Dustin and Dale lighting a lantern]

When most of the lanterns are ready the signal is given to release the lanterns. By now the lanterns are full of hot air and only require one finger to hold them. Looking up and watching your lantern float away with thousands of others was a beautiful site. All I remember is lots of laughing and cheering, as well as some ridiculously cheery Thai music in the background which would have sounded cheesy in any other context, but here it was wonderful.

Yi Peng Lanterns
[Yi Peng Lanterns]

You are supposed to make a wish when you release the lantern, but in the joy of the moment I completely forgot. Once I remembered that I forgot, I looked out in the sky and wondered which one was mine in the hope of making a retroactive wish. Good luck finding it…

Yi Peng Sky of Lanterns
[Yi Peng Sky of Lanterns]

I was so happy from the spectacle that I didn’t feel the need to wish for anything anyway. Besides, I always wish for unobtainable stuff that never comes true, like world peace, and the secrets to Google’s search algorithm.

After the first release, the remaining lanterns are lit and released, keeping the sky alight for a while longer. Fireworks are set off as well during this time, adding more light to the night sky.

Yi Peng Fireworks
[Yi Peng Fireworks]

Yi Peng is on every year around October/November and is held at the Lanna Dhutanka temple (behind Mae Jo University), just outside Chiang Mai. The event is free to attend, and the lanterns cost 100 Baht (about $3). There is also another lantern release event the following week, which is put on for foreigners. The event costs $100, which seems crazy when can see the local one for free.

Filed Under: Travel Blog Tagged With: buddhism, chiang mai, festival, thailand

Comments

  1. Dustin Main says

    November 4, 2011 at 5:09 am

    Nice one James.  I especially like the 4th pic, and I appreciate that the last one gives me a view of what the fireworks looked like   🙂

    Reply
  2. Drina Murphy says

    November 4, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    This looks amazing but I bet it was a thousand times better to actually be there:)

    Reply
    • James Clark says

      November 9, 2011 at 3:59 am

      Yes, I had many friends say the same thing and it is true – being there is amazing!

      Reply
  3. Bama says

    November 5, 2011 at 8:11 am

    Those lanterns look amazing! I need to see them with my very own eyes one day.

    Reply
  4. Lily says

    November 7, 2011 at 11:10 pm

    Lovely! There’s not much prettier than a night sky filled lanterns, is there?

    Reply
    • James Clark says

      November 9, 2011 at 4:01 am

      It is a wonderful site indeed 🙂

      Reply
  5. Tina says

    November 8, 2011 at 5:11 am

    Amazing! I wish I was there! Have to experience it sometime in my life for sure!

    Reply
  6. Nomadic Samuel says

    November 9, 2011 at 2:15 am

    Awesome pics James!  Especially the last one.

    Reply
    • James Clark says

      November 9, 2011 at 4:01 am

      Thanks Samuel, I was happy to get one good pic of the fireworks.

      Reply
  7. James Clark says

    November 9, 2011 at 4:01 am

    This was October 29, 2011. This is on in Chiang Mai every year around October/November, depending on the lunar cycle.

    Reply
  8. Jerry Hingle says

    November 9, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    This festival is definitely on my bucket list. What an amazing sight. 

    Reply
  9. Laura says

    November 9, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    This is so up on my bucket list right now! Lantern festivals are simply magical.

    Reply
  10. Claire says

    November 10, 2011 at 2:41 am

    That looks incredible! Would love to see that one day! 

    Reply
  11. Lorenzo Gonzalez says

    December 11, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    This looks awesome…

    Reply
  12. Melanie Camaro says

    March 14, 2012 at 11:57 am

    Hello, i am planning to go to this event this year, have you got an email address i can correspond with, i wand to ask you some pointers about going to this event. My email is melanie.camaro@yahoo.com
    Many thanks!

    Reply
    • Jandersoninns says

      May 25, 2012 at 3:37 pm

      Did you find out when the Lantern release is THIS year yet?  I know Loy Krathong is the 28th of November….but I really want to be sure to see the sky Lantern Release…  Please advise!

      Jenna

      jandersoninns@yahoo.com

      Reply
  13. Marc says

    September 21, 2015 at 1:46 am

    It looks amazing to see the images and wish I could be there. One day I will get there. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  14. Wendy says

    March 1, 2017 at 11:30 pm

    Thank you for blogging this!! I had never heard of this and I absolutely must go.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Loy Kra Wrong – the night our good luck got stuck in a tree | A Fleeting Footprint says:
    December 2, 2012 at 9:41 am

    […] the idyllic beach scenery in front of me was but a backdrop. Instead I was reading blog after blog (hey, you can read those later, me first!) about the magnificent simultaneous lantern release that […]

    Reply

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James Clark from Nomadic Notes

Hi, I’m James Clark, and I've been travelling the world since 2003 while running a location independent travel business. Nomadic Notes is a travel blog featuring travel guides and notes from my travels.

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