RYUZA HOSHI: Ubon Ratchathani - enjoying temples and the Loy Krathong festival

Monday, 22 November 2010

Ubon Ratchathani - enjoying temples and the Loy Krathong festival

A 6h train ride (57 baht) brought us from Korat to Ubon Ratchathani. Due to the Loy Krathong festival most hotels were fully booked. But the 3rd hotel of choice luckily still had rooms available, tokyo hotel.
The next day we rented a motorbike and explored the city. After some troubles of orientation, the fire department provided us a tourist map of the city :D So we started at the old temple Wat Tung Sri Muang, where friendly peopled offered us free drinks and food because of the festival. Next temple on the route was Wat Suphatanaram, a nice place to feed fish and watch the Mun river.
A bit further out of town the most stunning temples were waiting for us. Wat Nong Bua is a sparkling white and gold temple. With totally blue sky and strong sun the temple was nearly to bright to look at. Unluckily the pictures hardly can tell how stunning the temple looked to us^^
That was followed by the great Wat Ban Na Mung, which actually were 2 temples. Both having the structure of a boat shipping the temple. The smaller one even had rowers and guards :D The bigger one was actually sitting on a lake. I saw quite many temples already, but Wat Nong Bua and Wat Ban Na Mung are clearly outstanding. A drive along the Huai Wang Nong reservoir, where we later would celebrate the Loy Kraton festival, before we visited the cities Trung Sri Muang park.
At the evening we went to the Loy Krathong festival. First we visited the Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University and later went to the more stunning Huai Wang Nong reservoir. Some great fireworks, many floating Kratongs and flying Poms made up the scenery. The festival provided too many great snacks :P Later we sent our own Kratong floating and Pom flying :)