Ubon Candle Festival & related photos .

by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 4:48 pm

Went round the temples looking at the candle preparation. Discovered these young monks in Wat Cha Mankon.

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by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 4:51 pm

Some more .

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by **Aardvark** » July 29, 2010, 4:55 pm

Some lovely shots there TB =D>

by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 5:24 pm

Wat Cha Monkon was the winning float of last years festival so was ineligible for the prize this year. You will see why from the attached photos . It was a magnificent display .

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by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 5:26 pm

Some more .

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by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 5:37 pm

Whilst at this temple the monks showed me the technique involved with the model making .The sculptures are made from a wire mesh covered in plaster to get the basic shape. Then layers of wax are applied by brush and spatula. The finished appearance is perfected by shaving the now hardened wax .You will see from the photos of the unfinished models I attache .

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by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 5:54 pm

Some more of this impressive float .

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by **lee** » July 29, 2010, 6:17 pm

Very impressive, the detail is amazing. :shock:

I wonder what happens to them after the festival. :-k

by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 8:00 pm

lee wrote:Very impressive, the detail is amazing. I wonder what happens to them after the festival.

Well apparently they are towed back to the originating temple and left to decline naturally, which obviously means the wax just melts in the heat . The basic sub structure made of mesh and plaster is preserved and sometimes modifications are made but generally the overall appearance is kept . This is why a winning float is not allowed to take the prize in consecutive years .It gives the others the chance to catch up .
You will see when I post the photos of the parade some other temples efforts are also of a high standard but many just do not have the resources to compete . Nether less they still contribute to the overall majestic impression celebrating the arrival of Buddhist lent .

by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 8:41 pm

Now to some more shots of other floats in the procession . Sorry for the quality but conditions were a photographers nightmare, ranging from thunderstorms , causing the white flecks on the lens , to blazing sunshine. Both of which caused the native population to hoist those B umbrellas , seemingly always right in front of me .

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by **trubrit** » July 29, 2010, 8:50 pm

some more .

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by **Laan Yaa Mo** » July 30, 2010, 3:52 am

Amazing Thailand. The art work is incredible.

The naw nin (young novices) seem to be a friendly lot who like to mug for the camera.

I wonder how long it takes to make these wax creations?

by **jimboLV** » July 31, 2010, 7:50 am

The Ubon Candle Festival has got to be one of the premiere events in Thailand. It's a pity so many tourists come to Thailand and never get to see stuff like this. I only saw a very few farangs that looked like tourists. There were many beautiful girls and women in the parade. We were situated at the very end of the procession and you could see the exhaustion on these girls once they left the line of march. Many were met by their parents and you could see the pride on their faces. More pics to come.

by **jimboLV** » July 31, 2010, 7:54 am

Just couldn't stop taking pictures of the floats!

by **jimboLV** » July 31, 2010, 8:14 am

The floats don't last long in Thailand's heat, the wax melts pretty quickly. Here is a shot of the winning float after the morning procession. They are erecting screens to shade them from the sun. During the parade they had guys spraying the floats with ice water to keep them from melting.

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This one had already started to melt, even before the night procession.

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Ubon Candle Festival & related photos .

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