All those offerings and gratitude and yet, at 2.53am as Phra Jaan (Mother Moon) grew weary and slumped in the sky, when the last fireworks were over and the hordes had gone back to their hotels or on to private parties, I distinctly heard the mournful sound of her weeping.

Loy Krathong - the Thai & also Laotian Festival that takes place on the full moon in November to give thanks that we have been spared from the monsoonal floods (finally), and to make atonement for the ways we have abused and damaged Her this past year. The River Goddess, Mae Nam in Thai... Mother Water.

Originally a Thai family would collect the new flower blooms from their own garden and make a "krathong" - a small and beautiful 'boat' made from a slice of banana trunk (yes the healthy fruiting tree is sacrificed), wrapped and decorated with bai thong (banana leaves) and then carrying a candle, 3 incense sticks and a coin. Traditionally the decorations are pinned on with tiny slivers of bamboo. And it is floated in the river to atone and make merit - to say sorry - on the November full moon night.

It's a romantic ideal and, when it's done in the old way in tiny amounts by a few respectful Thai families on a still-swollen river, it's perfect and fine and gorgeous. One of my favourite Thai traditions.

FFWD to Chiang Mai 2018. Thailand is aiming for 40 millions tourists this year, on top of the roughly 64 million Thai people who live here. Let's imagine only 10% of all the Thai people, and only 10% of the annual tourist influx are actually here and actively launching a krathong into the river. Very conservative estimates!!

So we have around 10 million krathongs being happily launched.

That means approximately 10 million cheap and nasty lead-wick-dipped candles. They need to be the lead wicked cheap ones so the candles don't go out and bring you bad luck. That's more than a little bit of lead leeching into the water and being burned off into the atmosphere. Fun Fact: it is postulated that Thailand's unusually high lung cancer rates have a lot to do with toxic incense and candles being burned in confined spaces (eg temples). Yes, the krathongs are now fished out of the water the next day by the government and unceremoniously dumped (along with your prayers) in landfill, but the lead has already leeched into the water and will continue to leech into the soil and, eventually, the groundwater.

The incense? Not the romantic spiritual stuff we want to believe it is. You can read more here: https://jonbarron.org/article/toxic-incense So, basically, take the petrochemicals, the endocrine-disrupting synthetic fragrance agents, the toxic glues used to bind them and the synthetic colouring agents used to make approximately the approximately 30 million incense sticks that will be placed on the krathongs, and just dump it all in the water. Because by the time the krathong is fished out and becomes landfill, the damage is done.

And just for fun lets toss about 200 million staples into the river too, to rust and corrode and change the water pH and chemistry and upset some fish and their little fishy families, cos it takes at least 20 little staples to hold a regular krathong together.

The cheap but pretty flowers sprayed with pesticides? Let's not even go there.

Yesterday, in Chiang Mai, the government fished about 800,000 krathong out of the waterways and proudly announced that less than 10% of krathongs are now made using synthetic polystyrene. So, probably we should add about 750,000 pieces of polystyrene to our river dump. "But they fish it out again!", I hear you object. Yes, but only to dump it as landfill and poison the earth.

The last few years, well meaning but poorly informed Thai people have been creating bread krathongs. Great!! You get double merit for also feeding the fish - a special Thai ritual you will see around most every temple that has more than 3 feet of water.

Let's just ignore the chemical colouring agents contaminating the water, shall we? Feeding bread to fish, ducks and water birds kills them. And it induces algae bloom which suffocates yet more fish. It disturbs the ecosystem and is very far from being environmentally friendly. This BBC article is comprehensive, accurate and bursts many a bubble about tossing bread to the fish and the ducks. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31903778?fbclid=IwAR3XedJ9fzDyWKDF9RujO00HUuUGRSxaahxRBIa1ZFTWjPzi0z0Gpl-NwQI

And so the River Goddess wept when the party was over. She had not been thanked or honoured. She had been assaulted.

But even more than that....

Those same people who paid tribute to her flow and life-giving bounty, happily poured pesticides on their pretty, green, water-filled rice paddies. Mostly paraquat. In Thailand, if the rice isn't strictly organic, they're probably using this. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30344144 It's not a secret that paraquat kills not only people, but also fish, birds, frogs and the aquatic life after the rice paddy water drains off into khlongs and happily meanders to the rivers. Was it successfully banned in Thailand in 2018 (as the article suggested it might be?) No. Maybe next year.

And so the River Goddess felt like the battered wife. Her brutal husband brought her some cheap chemically raised chrysanthemums from the local market, to make a big show for the neighbours. Meanwhile her broken rib had not yet healed and she could still taste blood inside her mouth. She covered her bruises so as not to upset her guests, but she worried about the child in her womb.

So she wept when the party was over, and only the very few people still up and sitting vigil with Mother Moon were able to hear her.

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