December 25th, 2010

I'll start this post by wishing you a Merry Christmas, but only because this day is what we did on Christmas day, and not the actual day itself.  I am doing my best to get caught up, its now late March, and I am still working on my Christmas months.  I will try and catch up so you all can see what is going on in my life. 

We slept over on the train, and wished everyone a Merry Christmas Morning.  We arrived at Khai around 8:30 and then transfered to the Thai-Laos friendship Bridge at Nong Khai province.  We ran into a bit of difficulty at the immigration checkpoint for some reason.  My visa as well as Emi (from Japan)'s visa's were only single entry, which we had previously told Manit, the head Rotary Guy.  We assumed that it slipped his mind that there are two Emi's and two Emily's so that was the reason that part got a little confused.  Courtney and Anna, both had multiple entry visa's but for some reason also ran into some problems.  We ended up having to go to an immigration office and get re-entry visa's made out for us, which was just a lot of paperwork.  It made all of us slightly annoyed since we had just gone through similar paperwork a few weeks ago, as our three month check ins.  But despite all of that, we were able to go across the border into Laos.  By the time we had finished going through immigration, we were all STARVING! due to the fact that we hadn't eaten since KFC at the train station the night before (around five) and it was now nearing noon.  We also wanted showers...those were on the top of the list of things to do.  We checked into our hotel, showered, and got ready for the days adventures. 

We had lunch at a restaurant that was named Seafood, though no seafood was actually served...which was a little bit humorous for all of us. We were staying in the town of Vientiane.  After lunch, we headed off on a city tour and our first stop was at Pha That Luang. 

Pha That Luang is the national symbol and most important religious monument of the country.  it is a three-layered gilded stupa.  The version that we saw dates from 1566, but it has been ransacked and renovated numerous times since them.  Here is a brief history of the temple.  It was originally built as an Indic temple in the 3rd century.  Buddhist missionaries from the Mauryan Empire are believed to have been sent by the Emperor Ashoka, who brought a holy relic (believed to be the breast bone) of Lord Buddha to the stupa.  It was rebuilt in the 13th century as a Khmer temple which fell into ruins.  In the mid 16th century, King Setthathirat relocated his capitol to Vientiane and ordered construction of this temple in 1566.  It was rebuilt about 4 km from the center of Vientiane .  The bases had a length of 69 meters each and was 45 meters tall, and was surrounded by 30 small Stupas.  In 1641, a Dutch envoy of the Dutch East India Company visited, and was recieved by King Sourigna Vongsa at the temple.  He received a magnificent ceremony.  The stupa has been repeatedly plundered by the Burmese, Siamese and the Chinese.  Pha That Luang was destroyed by the Thai invasion in 1828, which left it heavily damaged and left abandoned.  It was not until the 1900, when the French restored it to its original design, based on the detailed drawings from 1867 by the French architect and explorer Louis Delaporte.  The first attempt to restore it was unsuccessful, and it had to be resigned and then reconstructed in the 1930s.

There is a bit of info on the temple, and you are probably thinking, "Enough writing! Let's see some pictures!" So, here are some pictures of Pha That Luang.

This is one of the buildings on the outside of this temple, I'm not totally sure what it is, but its really quite pretty.  I decided to show you a picture of it. :)

Directly outside of the temple, you can see it in the background, there were these ladies selling these birds.  Apparently they are for good luck, and these ladies (and men) would wander around, capturing them, and then selling them to the people.  Though i didn't see any one buying the birds, there were sure a lot of people selling them.  They were very camera shy, so I had to be sneaky in catching a photo, without being asked for money.  I don't think they would ask, but I didn't have any Laos money, and didn't want to risk it.  Though i would have happily paid them for the picture, I was just too lazy. 

A group shot outside the temple.  Sadly I ruined this picture by wiping my eye, but in my defense, we were looking directly into the sun! There are other pictures where I am not rubbing my eye, but the others have them.  I will have to get the picture from them at a later date.  You will notice I am in pants.  My host mom told me that it would be cold, so I didn't bring any shorts.  Not my smartest plan, because it didn't get cold until the very end of the trip, leaving me constantly hot.  It was fun though. 

Walking up the temple steps.  This is the entrance way to the temple.  Under the big, um, roof there is a small area where you can pray.  It was a beautiful temple, and I thoroughly enjoyed walking around it.  Anna (the American) found a nail that was poking upwards with her foot, not exactly a fun experience and had her hobbling for the rest of the day. Luckily, P'boy and P'Gop knew what to do, and medical attention was not needed. 

The temple itself.  Pretty magnificent eh? Well that's what it looks like.  Very tall, and golden, and starting to lose its golden color in some areas.  It is still a very important symbol for the people of Laos and I was glad that I was able to experience a part of their culture. 

Fernanda standing in front of the temple.  I thought it was a cool picture, so I took it.  :) The place was magnificent.  The gate that you can't see because Fernanda's butt is in the way, was all ornately done, and had Buddhist images on it.  Pretty cool.

All of us standing on the grass beside the temple.  There wasn't a lot of people there...we were the only ones pretty much, so it was easy to get a photo without a million other people in it. 

Our second stop was at Wat That Luang Tai. I have no words to describe this temple, other than it was extremely colorful.  The entire temple was painted with colorful murals.  It was pretty awesome.  I don't know much of the history of this temple, so you will have to settle for pictures only.

An outside look at the temple.  As you can see, it is much more colorful than the previous ones I have been to, and I don't just mean there's less gold.  This entire complex was bright with murals, and colors.  Quite pretty.

The ceiling of the Temple.  As you can tell, its brightly colored.  The entire place was painted like this.  There's not much that I can say, because I don't know the stories behind the murals, but its pretty to look at. 

A side look across the temple, including the roof, pillars, and all of the murals.  Pretty eh?

Our next stop of the day was at Patuxai, or the Victory gate.  This is a local rendition of Paris' Arc de Triomphe.  Besides the elaborate Buddhist embellishment, it differs from the original in having four gates instead of two, and being just a bit higher (to spite the French).  It is pretty impressive from afar, and there is a very frank English sign inside the monument that lables it a "monster of concrete".  The concrete in quesion was donated by the US, but it was supposed to go towards a new airport instead.  The area around the monument is completely lined with palm-trees and is complete with fountains.  It was quite nice, but definately lacking in shade during the heat of the day. 

We were allowed to climb up this monster (to the seventh floor, stairs only) and got to see a nice view of central Vientiane.  There were two souvenir shops there, where we were able to buy a few things.  I got some flags for my jacket, a keychain, and a post card or two, for very cheap.  I thought Thailand was cheap, but holy smokes, Laos is much cheaper, though it seems much more expensive because of their money.  One cup of coffee is like...10,000 kip (their currency) which is like...a dollar? Maybe less...I don't know the exact currency rate. 

Some history of this gate.  It is a war monument in the center of Vientiane.  It was built between 1957 and 1968.  It is dedicated to those who fought in the struggle for independence from France.  Though it does bare some similarity to the one in France, as I earlier mentioned, it is typically Laotian in design, and is decorated with many Buddhist mythoogical figurines such as the kinnari (half-female, half-birg figures).  It was built during the turbulent history of Laos, and its known as Anousavali (literally meaning "memory.") The monument was built after World War II in memory of the Laotian soldiers who died in various wars, as was as during the independence from Frand in 1949, which was an era of the monarchy in the country.  It was built using American funds, and in the 1960's the cement was originally intended to build an airfield during the Vietnam ward.  The US gave the money to the Laotian government to build an airport, but the government decided to build the monument instead.  As a consequence, the monument is sometimes referred to as teh "vertical runway."  It was designed by the architect Mr. Tham Sayasthsena, a Laotian citizen. 

Enough history, lets add some pictures.

Here is a view looking out from the building.  As you can somewhat see, there is somewhat of a "landing strip", but the real landing strip is on the otherside.  There were lots of people there, but it was hard to get a decent picture, becuase of the placement of the sun.  I climbed to the very top, and it was pretty cool.  An awesome view of the city. 

This is more of the "landing strip" that was talked about.  It looks like one too.  This just shows a bit more of the scenery and the area of Laos. 

Looking up at the ceiling, and you can see the Buddhist images.  There were lots of different pictures around the place, but these were the ones that I could get the best picture of.  You can't see the kinnari in this picture though.

A different picture of the "landing strip".

I will admit, this is not my picture, credit to who ever took it.  This is the final staircase to get to the very top of the building.  I was a little uneasy about climbing it, but I faced my fear because my friends said that there was a spectacular view.  To me the view was pretty much the same, just a bit higher than the platform before, but it's all good. 

Looking at the Arc.  It really does resemble the one in France.  It was hard to get a picture because of the location of the usn, but you can somewhat see the building. 

 

Once again, not my picture.  There was too many people for my picture to look like this.  I got it from google, so credit to who ever took it.  I just wanted to show you what the building looked like, without the sun behind it.  It's pretty impressive.  I climbed to the very top.  There is a little room that we could walk around in the middle, and very tallest pier.  Pretty cool.  The souvineer shop was located in the square part below the middle tier, and then the second store was located in the big middle section. 



Our final stop of the day was at another temple.  This temple was called Wat Si Muang.  Here is some history about this temple.  Wat Si Muang was created in 1566.  It is home to the central pillar of the city, and is famed for bringing good luck and fortune, especially to those that are trying for children.  The legend behind the temple is that a pregnant woman that was so inspired by the Gods, threw herself into the hillar hole, moments before it was placed.  The wat (temple) is surrounded by gates, once inside there are many stunning Buddha statues.  The most notable one is placed under a large Hodhi tree, with several serpents shadowing over the top.  Inside the wat there are two rooms.  the entrance room and the alter room.    The altar room is pretty truly an inspirational mix of colors, sights, and smells. 

Here are some pictures:

Here is the famous Buddha image sitting under the tree.  At the time, I didn't know that it was all that important, but now I am glad that I thought it looked interesting, and took a photo of it. 

One of the stals that was seling flowers, candles, incense, and other religious articles that can be used within the temple.  I didn't purchase any, becuase I didn't do any praying.  Normally I would, but a few of us were starting to feel tired of all of the wats.  Remo, who had only been to one or two, was grumbling about them.  Which was quite amusing.  The prices were fairly cheap, and there were a lot of young couples who were buying.  I guess they really wanted a baby.  :)

The shrine.  This is the shrine that is located within the alter room, and let me tell you, that room smelt.  Not bad, but the smell of the incense was pretty overpowering.  I could only spend about 15 minutes in there before my allergies started acting up, and I had to flee the room. 

A side look down the building.  All of the windows had metal grates that were designed with Buddhist images, pretty cool.  One thing I didn't understand was the name of the temple.  Wat (temple) Si Muang (the color purple).  The temple had very little purple, and in all honesty was very yellow...so that confused me greatly, but I didn't question it because our guide was very ....flamboyant, and enjoyed going off on very long tangents that after a while, stopped making sense.

So that was what we did today, lots of temples, and lots of cool things.  This post was really long, so if you got bored, sorry about that.  We headed out and had a fancy dinner at a restaurant at the airport, but it wasn't very good.  They gave us free wine (which we were allowed to drink, because of the holiday) but it tasted like....garbage? Haha it wasn't very good at all....we guessed that that was the reason it was free :)

Just a quick look at the detailing on one of the doors in the temple.  This leads from the chamber room (I totally forget what its called) into the alter room.  These temples are really nicely done, and even the smallest details make it look that much better.

An across look at the alter room. 

December 24th, 2010

Day Two!

Today we were woken up in a very rude way, the man selling coffee, tea, and hot chocolate yelling in our ears.  It wouldn't have been too bad except for the fact that it was 6 in the morning and we went to bed around two....The man continued to sell his drinks every ten minutes, wandering up and down the isles yelling "Coffee! Tea! Ovaltine!" Eventually I gave up on trying to get back to bed, and just got up, though I almost fell out of the bed since I forgot I was on the top bunk.

We stopped in Bangkok and headed off the train station to drop off our bags and pick up the other two students that live close to Bangkok.  We were going to spend the day exploring Bangkok.  Our first stop was at Wat Pra Kaew (this is my second time seeing it, and it is still quite spectacular).

Our transportation around Bangkok.  This is the traditional Tuk-Tuk that you can ride around town.  Believe it or not, we fit...four people in this thing.  It wasn't the most comfortable, and most of us were feeling a tad squished, but it was pretty fun, zooming from the train station around town.  It was pretty hot, but luckily there was a breeze due to the driving.  I will admit, that these drivers, are....sometimes scary....

The Outfit.  Much like the first time I went to this temple, these three ladies had to wear the skirts and in Kims case (the blonde in the very back) the shirt as well.  They weren't exactly happy with them, not a big fan as it was hot, and those skirts really don't help since they are long.  Fernanda (the one in front) got into a little bit of trouble with her skirt, but I'll get into that story a bit later.

This is the entranceway into the temple.  I had never thought to take a picture of it on my first trip, so I thought I should do it on my second trip.  There were lots of people here again today, but it was still quite fun.  The only downside was it was unbearable hot, and because it is a religious temple, we had to wear pants.  Not exactly fun, but still it was fun.  :)

One of the shrine type things inside the temple walls.  I'm trying not to duplicate any pictures that I may have shown in the past trip.  As you can tell, its gold.  Lots and lots of gold. 

This is a model of what the old temple looked like.  The original temple was burnt down, or destroyed (I can't remember now) and the temple that you see today was a reconstruction of the old one, as well as some new parts added.  If the old temple was still here, this is what it would look like, but with more colors. 

Goofing around.  This is Emi, Kim, and Fernanda (left to right) showing how they could be like the monsters that protect the temple (the ones that you can somewhat see located on the big gold statue behind them).  It is not correct for them to be showing their legs, but luckily no guards were around to get mad at them.  They were given a warning by our chaperone to be a bit more discreet, because this was a place of religious worship.

The Guard: This guard caused a tiny bit of trouble for us.  But I wanted my picture taken with him, so I did.  It was allowed for us to take a picture with him, but we aren't allowed to talk to him or anything.  Fernanda (the Brazillian) decided to lift the side of her skirt so that he leg was showing (not done), and unluckily for her, one of the other guards saw and was not impressed.  

Here is what happened to poor Fernanda.  They took her, P'Boy and P'Gop into this little room and Fernanda had to show him all of the pictures on her camera.  Any picture where she was showing her legs (at the temple) was deleted and overall she got into a bit of trouble.  She wasn't impressed and had some inpolite words to say about him in portuguese.  We couldn't really sympathize with her, because she had been told previously to watch what she was doing, and not to show her legs.  I had a picture of her showing her leg, but in case the guard came up and wanted to see my camera, I quickly deleted it since I had pictures I really didn't want deleted. 

After the temple we decided to do a bit of shopping.  We went to this mall, and I bought a few things-not much because it was pretty expensive.  In a later picture I will show you why I say it was an expensive mall.  They had a bunch of different "Christmas" decorations, and it was pretty cool.

This is why I say the mall was expensive.  Not only was it HUGE but in the front entranceway it had this.  A giant christmas tree made out of Swarovski Crystal.  Yes, you read that right.  This giant thing is covered in Swarovski crystals.  I was impressed, it was really quite beautiful, but it brought me to a conclusion....rich people shop here. :)

Here is an upclose look at it, sorry its hard to see but its hard to take a good picture.  I'm not sure if the entire thing was Swarovski crystals, but the things dangling at the end of the strand definately were.  It was quite beautiful, as I have previously mentioned. 

Since it was Christmas eve, none of us wanted to feel like we weren't at home, and we wanted to keep on with the "Christmas Spirit".  We arranged a Secret Santa and all exchanged some of the gifts.  I bought Christmas Santa hats for everyone, and added a few pieces of candy into them as a "stocking" and then other people bought some decorations to decorate the train.  We weren't exactly all happy that we would be spending Christmas on a train, but we made the most of it, and it turned out to be quite fun.  This is P'Boy, our chaperone.  He decided to puff out his stomach, create a beard of tape and become our Santa Clause.  It was hilarious, and made us feel right at home.  We slept on the train, and you can somewhat see our beds in the background of this picture.

Happy Birthday! Well, technically yesterday was Fernanda's birthday, but we decided to celebrate it today with all of the other exchange students.  Since we didn't have a cake, Anna and Courtney bought a bun that had a sausage in it, put a candle on it, and we all sange Happy Birthday.  It was a new tradition, but she enjoyed it thoroughly.

The North-East Crew.  This is all of the exchange students that decided to go on the trip.  In the back row, going from left to right we have: Emily (America), Emily (Canada), Remo (South Africa)(New guy!), Kim (German), Emi (Japan).  The front row, left to right is: Courtney (America), Anna (America), and Fernanda (Brazil). This is us showing our Christmas...Eve..Spirit.

While shopping for the day (sorry these are out of order) we ran into the real Santa Claus, his elves and his reindeer.  The dogs were all dressed up in Santa suits, and I'm not totally sure that his "elves" were wearing the appropriate clothes.  They handed out cookies and little sweets, which was very kind.  I gave mine to a homeless man on the street.  He said thanks :)  

Decorating the train.  Part of the Christmas Spirit is having some decorations up.  Someone brought the garland, and we decorated our little area for Christmas.  The workers all laughed, but the people that were sharing our compartment seemed to enjoy it, and we all had a grand old time. 

So that was December 24th, 2010.  Our Christmas Eve affair.  We had fun, and I'm glad that I was surrounded by those close to me, to help me not think about not being home for Christmas. 

My Second Rotary Trip!

My second Rotary trip of the year (major trip) was to Ee-san, or the Northeast of Thailand.  It was an absolutely amazing trip, that I had a lot of fun on.  Though at times it was tiring, and sometimes I wanted to turn around and walk down the mountain, I managed to survive.  So here is my amazingly awesome trip to the Northeast of Thailand.

My first day, December 23rd, was spent at school (lots of fun).  Originally my friend Fernanda was supposed to come down and we would spend the day together before heading to the train station, but she became delayed and didn't arrive till 6. 

We picked her up from the bus station (she lives in Phuket) and then headed home so I could shower and get ready for our trip to Bangkok.  After I was ready, we headed off and drove for about 45 minutes to Phun Phin, where we would catch the train.  The train was an hour late, so we had to wait for a bit.  When the train eventually showed up, we said our goodbyes to my mom and then headed off.  On the train, we met up with Emi, Remo (New exchange student from South Africa), and P'Boy (All from Nakorn Sri Thammerat), Kim, and Emily all on the train.  We were happy to see this since Fernanda and I were a little uneasy about sleeping on a train by ourselfs...We spent a lot of time chatting away, and eventually fell asleep on the train. 

Sorry theres no pictures, its more of an informational one.  The next ones will have pictures.

My First Rotary Event!

As many of my readers probably know, Rotary does a lot of things for the community.  My host Rotary club is the same way, though this is the first time that I have actually been to an event that we have hosted.  Some of the things that we have done are: creating shelters for bus benches, giving wheelchairs to those in need, and we put in a water purification center at one of the schools. 

I went to the grand unveiling of the water purification center, and heres what it looked like.

 This is the project that we helped to fund, along with the Surat Thani Men's Rotary Club.  (Somoson Rotary Club). 

 The actual system.  The system flilters water from the river nearby,and it goes to the big silver canister (in the left corner ofthe picture).  It then goes through all of these other little nooks and crannies, being treated with a variety of different things until it is drinkable.  I didn't totally understand the translation or the proccess since it was spoken in very quick Thai. 

 Lunch.  I couldn't post this post without talking about my lunch.  It was extremely good, but also very spicy.  It was the first time that I have eaten food that was soo spicy it made me cry.  Normally I either drink a lot of water, or try to avoid eating a lot of the spicy parts, but I didn't have any water.  Everyone at the table, and the surrounding students, giggled and eventually brought me a glass of water, which I was very thankful for.

 This is me and one of my Rotary members standing by the tap area.  It was extremely hot here, but since I am the exchange student, I had to wear my Rotary jacket.  I really didn't want to, but the circumstances made me wear it. 

 The group of us (Sritapee Rotary Club) standing infront of the project.

 Me standing there with a glass of the water from the taps.  It was pretty good water, it tasted like...water...so thats all good. 

Standing with some of the school kids while eating icecream.  I got some too, but I just ate mine faster. 

So that is my first Rotary project that I got to go to.  I'm not sure if I will get to go to others, but they at least brought me to one, which was very nice. 

Loi Krathong!

The Loi Krathong Festival is a pretty amazing festival that I got to participate in.  It takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12gh month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar...in our wester timings, this is in November.  "Loi" means "to float" and a "krathong" is traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk.  Modern krathongs are made of bread or styrofoam, but there are still some people who stick with the traditional banana tree trunk.  A krathong will be decorated elaborately with folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, and incense sticks.  A low value coin is sometimes included as an offering to the river spirits.

During the night of the full moon, Thais will float their frathong on a river, canal, or a pond lake.  The festival is believed to originate in an ancient practice of paying respect to the spirit of the waters.  The origins of Loi Krathong are stated to be in Sukhothai, but it is an argued point because it could be an invention from the Bangkok period.  According to the writings of H.M. King Rama IV in 1863, the originally Brahmanical festival was adaped by Buddhists in Thailand as a ceremonly to honour the original Buddha.  Apart from venerating the Buddha with light (the candle on the "raft"), the act of floating away the candle raft is symbolic of letting fo of all one's grudges, anger and defilements, so that one can start life afresh on a better foot.  People will also cut their fingernails and hair and add them to the raft as a symbol of letting fo of the bad parts of onself.  Many Thai people believe that floating a raft will bring good luck, and they do it to honor and thank the Goddess of Water, Phra Mae Khongkha (Thai: พระแม่คงคา). 

Yi Peng-Loi Krathong coincides with the Lanna festival, known as Yi Peng.  Due to a difference between the old Lanna calenter and the Thai calendar, Yi Peng is held on a full moon of the 2nd month of the Lanna calendar (confusing I know!).  A multitude of Lanna-style sky lanterns (khom loi), litterally floating lanterns, are launched into the air, where they resemble large flocks of giant fluorescent jellyfish gracefully floating by through the sky.  The festival is meant as a time for tham bun, to make merit.   People usually make khom loi from a thin fabric, such as rice paper, to which a candle or fuel cell is attached.  when the fuel cell is lit, the resulting hot air which is trapped inside the lantern , creates enough lift for the khom loi to float up in to the sky. 

So thats a little big of history on this festival. Onto my day with this festival!

This is the some Loi Krathongs that have already been deposited into the water, mine looked similar to this but the flowers were pink.  But this was the general idea of it.  You could buy one for about 100 baht, but my host mom and I decided to make them for our family. 

Sending the khom loi up into the sky.  I bought two of these for myself to send up into the air in Canada, as well as a souvineer.  They were really quite gorgeous, and the sky was speckled with lots of these twinkling lights. 

As I somewhat mentioned earlier, my host mom and I decided to make our own.  We made them out of the traditional banana tree trunk.  After cutting the piece of tree off, we brought it in and attached the banana leaves to it.  I spent a lot of time folding the banana leaves...twice.... I did it wrong the first time, and no one noticed until I had them all finished....so I had the pleasure of unfolding all of them, and then refolding them the proper way.  It really does pay to pay attention.

Here's me working on my loi krathong.  I was slower than my host mom...she had two done by the time I had one done, but she's had more experience.  As you can tell I am hard at work. :)

Here's me actually working on the thing.  After a while your thumbs start to hurt since you are pushing nails through three layers of banana leaves and into the trunk of a tree.  Eventually we found alternative ways to get the nails into the trunk.

The finished product! Well this is somewhat the finished product...at least the part that mom and I worked on.  We still had to put the candle, incense, and other things like hair, nails, and the low denomination of baht.  It was quite fun.  We did stick all of the (strange) things into it.  I didn't know the meaning behind sticking my hair on the raft, but now I do.  We accidently stuck all of my stuff on the wronge loi krathong, so we had to redo it.  So my hair had to be cut twice, and I was running low on fingernails and toenails.  Haha.

The town (Don Sak) had a slight competition on who could make the nicest loi krathong.  This was one of the submissions.  As far as I know it was just for decoration, and didn't actually get stuck in the water.  For the most part, this is all made of folded banana leaves.  Pretty eh?

Another submission for the competition, but this one uses a bit more color.  This one had a lot more flowers (mainly orchids) and the banana leaves were less intricate, but it is still just as spectacular as the one that is pictured above.

The townsfolk sending the khom loi's up into the air!  There were quite a few of them, and I even got the chance to send one up.  It was extremely funny when the people would attempt to send the khom loi's into the air, but they wouldn't have enough in them to go up so they would fly over peoples heads, and the people would duck for cover. 

It was hard to get a good picture of all of them in the air, so here is a picture of a few being off in the distance, with on being close up. 

My town didn't have that big of a celebration but there are some places that had thousands..ours maybe had a few hundred..maybe less.  Haha

Not my town, but here is an example of the beauty that the khom loi can have.  Some people in my town attached sparklers (the firework) so that was prettty .