Bangfai Special Report

Thailand has essentially three seasons, characterised as 'hot' from March to May, 'rainy' from June to October and 'cool' from November to February. This year the hot season was shorter than usual, as the rainy season kicked off in April. This was a blessing as temperatures in the hot season often get into the 40's - over 100˚F. With the coming of the rain, the temperature drops to around 30, about 80 to 90˚F, much more civilised! Once the rain comes, it does so in copious quantities, often 6" of rain falls in a few hours, leading to temporary local flooding. This is the scene in the road outside my house during one such downpour. but an hour after the rain stops, the floodwater has drained away.

In this region - Issan - many peoples' lives still revolve around farming and the annual farming cycle. With little or no rain falling in the cool and hot seasons, by May the fields are dry and hard, impossible to plough. Without the rains, the farming cycle cannot start, so all over Issan villagers craft large rockets which they then fire into the sky to bring rain for the rice fields. This is Bangfai, the rocket festival.

From time to time I have seen the smoke trails of the rockets in the distance, but I had never been to the launch site or seen the rockets close up. That changed this year when I went to a large launch site between Nongkhai and Udonthani just outside the town of Phen. The launch site is next to a large lake (what goes up must come down) and the launch towers are angled towards the water. Dao and I had passed the site a number of times on the way to her village, and we planned to attend the festival together this year.

However Dao was away, so I went to the festival with Dao's father, mother and nephew. I don't know Dao's parents' names, I call them Paw and May, so I will refer to them as such. Paw does not make his own rockets, so our first task on arrival was to select a rocket from those on sale. Hence the obviously posed photo below. The rocket is then prepared for launch. Although my Thai is good enough to ask what the guy in the hat was doing, it wasn't good enough to understand the reply! The rocket Paw bought for 1800 baht (about £30) consisted of a 5 foot length of blue PVC drain pipe to which a 20 foot length of bamboo is securely fastened. This seems to be the standard design, and the chap below right is carrying one to the same design, but which he had clearly made himself.

There appeared to be two basic sizes of rocket. Most common were those depicted above, but there were some that were double the size, around 40 feet long, requiring 5 or 6 people to carry them to the launch site. Below left a standard rocket has just got airborne, while below right the larger version is about to go. The people in the photos give a good idea of the relative sizes.

Altogether there are 10 launch towers at this site, seven for the small rockets and three for the large ones. Rockets were continuously being loaded on to the towers and launched. I estimate that between two and three hundred were launched while I was there with a failure rate of one or two per cent. At one point around mid-day launches were suspended (it was eerily quiet for a while) until every tower was loaded with a rocket ready to go. Then there was a loudspeaker countdown, and they all launched more-or-less simultaneously. It was an amazing sight, accompanied by a deafening roar, and followed by clouds of billowing smoke.

The original idea behind the festival was that the rockets will bring the rain, but the rainy season had started early this year. In fact overnight there had been a copious downpour of rain, so that when we drove to Phen we saw lots of flooded fields, and one flooded road which necessitated a diversion. I joked with Paw and May that the rockets were not really needed this year in view of all the flooding, but it has become such an established tradition that it went ahead in spite of the floods, low clouds, and constant threat of rain. For much of the day, the cloud was very low, so that the rockets disappeared into it within a few seconds of launch which was quite disappointing, as a rocket normally flies for 15 to 20 seconds, and achieves a remarkable height.

At other times of the year enthusiasts gather to fire rockets into the sky, and it was these that I had seen from a distance in the past. They have a different purpose however, which is purely competitive, with (allegedly) large sums of money changing hands in wagers on who produced the most successful rocket. I say allegedly, because of course gambling is illegal in Thailand apart from the state-run National Lottery. A prohibition of something will always make it more attractive, which is why there is so much illegal gambling in Thailand. Anyway I had a great day out and I shall definitely go back next year!!