Thailand Festivals & Events

OCTOBER 14 - 15, 2008
At the Wat Thai temple City Pillar Shrine
Pon Pisai district in Nong Khai

This extraordinary miracle always occurs at the beginning of the full moon night in the eleventh lunar month (End of Buddhist Lent). It can be seen along the Mekong River in the districts of Mueang, Phon Phisai, Pak Khat, Bung Kan, Tha Bo, Si Chiang Mai and Sangkhom. Bang Fai Phaya Nak is a term used for red and pinkish fire balls, which according to belief, belong to Phaya Nak or the great serpent of the underwater world. On the day marking the End of Buddhist Lent, a great number of people come to witness this phenomenon.

The nak, the Thai rendition of the Hindu “naga”, is a creature more playful than its ferocious European cousin, the dragon, and more whimsical than the Chinese dragon and other mythical serpent gods. Associated with water, it dwells in three realms: beneath the earth where it guards minerals and gems, in bodies of still and flowing water, and in the skies where it creates the rain which nourishes crops.

Living in a netherworld of cisterns and caverns filled with precious gems, the nak is associated with streams which rise from underground sources. Beginning life in the bosom of Mother Earth, the nurturer of life, it undulates across the earth, its shape describing both the course of a river and the arc of river waves. It is also the “keeper of the life-energy that is stored in the terrestrial waters”, an apt description of the fertility it imparts to the fields that rivers and streams irrigate.

Source: Tourism Authority of Thailand
www.TourismThailand.org