by the grace of God: Thailand November festival Sydney 2012 - Loy Krathong (ลอยกระทง) Part 2

The organizer made the festival as interactive as possible for all ages. There are around 30 stalls, where festival goers can view and buy some products, not all are thailand products. The food stalls are obviously the most popular and while the majority is Thai food, there is a few of standard western food style too like those can be found on weekend market around Sydney.

Crowd on the river

There are two areas of the festival, the north and the south side of the river. There main stage is located at the southern side of the river, as well as most of the workshops and all the food stalls. They also have a Thai massage stall. They certainly make good use of both side of the river.

From left to bottom clockwise - alcohol area, free photo booth, kids zone, thai festival 2012 stall

The activities for the kids are Muay Thai boxing Demonstration (Eye of the Tiger), free face painting, amusement rides, krathong making, batik painting, shadow puppet making and lotus lantern workshop, bubble contortion girls (aerial artistry performing on the river), fire acts (by Circaholic anonymous). There are certainly a lot of workshop to keep the children and young at hearts busy before the main event.

Not forgetting the adult, the organizers set easy to follow workshops at the southern side of the river - tung making (from Northern Thailand), Phi ta Khon Mask Painting (North East Thailand), Krathong making and Fish mobile making (Central Thailand), Shadow puppet making (Southern Thailand). For photos and other demonstration, please go to part 3.

One more hour before the launching of krathong

Some of the food - there are dessert, vegetarian and fatty food

Now, the most important thing, the food. I must admit as much as some of Thai's dessert (kha nom) are similar to Indonesian dessert (where I was born), they do have some really weird combination (read: Awesome) of sweet and savory. We tried Kha nom krock (been dying to try it since my Japanese friend who visited Thailand last year raved about it), I was totally disappointed. It was strange. Then later my friend from Thailand tried it and she would throw all in a bin if she were me. So, it will stay as my to eat list on Thailand trip.

We also had ka nom dta goo (or something similar to that - I am not too sure of the exact name) which is a rice flour cup with one corn in the middle of the sweet flour and at the bottom there was sago. It was sweet and savory, surprisingly nice. Well done J for picking that one.

Lastly we had to try the world famous kow neaw ma moung (mango and sweet sticky rice). At first I thought "what? a mango and a sticky rice? what a weird combination!!!" and I couldn't bring myself to even imagine how it would taste. but it turned out to be DIVINE (it probably not even as nice as the one you can buy in Thailand's street market), but the ripped mango melt into the mouth and the sticky rice turns out to be sweet sticky rice. The coconut cream poured on to the sticky rice and mango just create another level of heaven. They will definitely be my daily staple on my Thailand trip.