New Year’s Eve 2016 Was A Winner!

New Year’s Eve 2016 was a winner! I have always been a major opponent of the silly practise of “celebrating” the movement of the hands of the clock from 11:59 to 12:00 to 0:01 at the end of December every year. I always thought of it as nonsensical and meaningless. Celebrating New Year’s Eve had the same appeal as undergoing a triple root canal. This year it was different.

We had a family dinner at a riverside restaurant across the Mae Nam Ping River from our little Thai hotel. On our way back across the old iron bridge, that reminded me of the old railway bridges of my youth, we saw what looked like a balloon floating up in the sky. Then another and another! As we approached the far end of the bridge, we saw that they were large lanterns floating upward powered by a burning candle. 

We learned that vendors were selling these paper lanterns for people to inflate and send skyward. Each lantern when unfolded was about a metre high and half a meter wide with an open circular base. A wax candle was wired to sit within the middle of the open base. When the candle was lit, the heat inflated the treated paper lantern and when filled with enough heated air, the lantern was released and it drifted slowly skyward.

In Thailand it is believed that launching one of these balloons can send a person’s bad luck and misfortune away into the air, especially if it disappears from view before the fire goes out. Often people will say a short prayer before launching the balloon. The process was mystical and surreal.

Within the half hour we spent on the bridge, the sky was speckled with hundreds of golden glowing lanterns all dancing in the night air. Similes to describe the spectacle included: a sky full of giant fire flies, a sea of drifting jelly fish or a nebula of twinkling stars. They were all right on target!

We spent an hour lighting and enjoying the launching of the lanterns. The bridge deck became filled with amateur and professional launchers, with some lanterns fizzling and dropping into the river and others zooming upward with Cape Canaveral speed. The lanterns seemed to float and drift for an hour before the candle died, and the sky west of us resembled a huge cluster of stars over downtown Chiang Mai. It was a unique and truly enjoyable experience, again enhanced by being able to share it with family and especially Sawyer and Helen. 

Following our lantern launching adventure we entered the firecracker stage of the evening. The kids enjoyed popping cherry bombs on the sidewalk and the evening ended with a major fireworks display directly in front of our hotel. It was truly one of the only New Year’s Eves that I can say I really enjoyed!