Siam Curated Guides
Thailand's calendar is one of the richest on earth, and most visitors watch it go by without knowing what they are seeing. These pages explain the festivals properly: what they mean, where they come from, and where to stand when they arrive.
On the full moon of the eighth month, Thailand walks by candlelight. What the Buddha's first sermon means, why the holy day itself dates only from 1958, and how a deadly rocket gave Ubon the greatest candle festival on earth.
Read guide →Thailand's greatest candle procession: the founding of 1901, the craft that built the carved wax towers, and the ground at Thung Si Mueang that remembers more than it says.
Read guide →Every September a UNESCO city holds a festival for a banana — floats, contests, a banana beauty queen. Underneath it runs one of the oldest rites in Asia: the day the living feed the dead.
Read guide →For one month a year, Thailand's roads fill with trees made of money. What Kathin and pha pa mean, why kings arrive by barge, and how the money tree descends from the wishing tree of Buddhist cosmology.
Read guide →