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At the close of the monsoon season, the thunderstorms that have lashed Bang Phlii become a flower shower, and a time for celebration. A barge moves slowly down the town’s waterway, Khlong Samrong. Worshippers along the banks loft lotuses into it, so many that they nearly engulf its principal passenger: a large Buddha image. The image, a replica of the Luang Pho To in the nearby monastery, is the focus of this, the Rap Bua ceremony. Its journey recreates one of almost mythical proportions two centuries ago. Thousands of Thais flock here each year at the end of the rainy season to honour it.

At the close of the monsoon season, the thunderstorms that have lashed Bang Phlii become a flower shower, and a time for celebration. A barge moves slowly down the town’s waterway, Khlong Samrong. Worshippers along the banks loft lotuses into it, so many that they nearly engulf its principal passenger: a large Buddha image. The image, a replica of the Luang Pho To in the nearby monastery, is the focus of this, the Rap Bua ceremony. Its journey recreates one of almost mythical proportions two centuries ago. Thousands of Thais flock here each year at the end of the rainy season to honour it.

At the close of the monsoon season, the thunderstorms that have lashed Bang Phlii become a flower shower, and a time for celebration. A barge moves slowly down the town’s waterway, Khlong Samrong. Worshippers along the banks loft lotuses into it, so many that they nearly engulf its principal passenger: a large Buddha image. The image, a replica of the Luang Pho To in the nearby monastery, is the focus of this, the Rap Bua ceremony. Its journey recreates one of almost mythical proportions two centuries ago. Thousands of Thais flock here each year at the end of the rainy season to honour it.

At the close of the monsoon season, the thunderstorms that have lashed Bang Phlii become a flower shower, and a time for celebration. A barge moves slowly down the town’s waterway, Khlong Samrong. Worshippers along the banks loft lotuses into it, so many that they nearly engulf its principal passenger: a large Buddha image. The image, a replica of the Luang Pho To in the nearby monastery, is the focus of this, the Rap Bua ceremony. Its journey recreates one of almost mythical proportions two centuries ago. Thousands of Thais flock here each year at the end of the rainy season to honour it.

As night falls, majestic fire boats, elaborately-adorned with flowers, incense sticks, candles and lanterns and each bearing an assortment of ritual offerings, are set alight and floated down the Mekong River. Against the darkness of the moonlit night. The sight of flickering light from candles and lanterns on magnificent fire boats drifting downstream on the Mekong River, is both mesmerising and awe-inspiring. It is this enchanting spectacle that has given the water-borne procession its very name Lai Reua Fai which literally means to set afloat a fire boat.