Big wick

The Ubon candle festival features a competition between temples in the region. You can imagine that the first competition was won by a single decorative candle carried by a monk. Then one temple had the idea of enhancing their candle with a tiny statue, and then the whole thing got out of hand; and now the winning entries need to be towed by a lorry, like this one:

Built on a plaster and coconut strand base, this is all candle wax, with a single candle in the middle which will presumably be lit at some point. The amount of effort required to build such a monster is staggering, and when we went round a few temples yesterday, they were still hard at work preparing their entries.

Comments 🔗

2010-07-26 | wentworth says

You should get out on the road more often, excellent shots.

2010-07-26 | Spike says

Thanks. Just sticking a few on the iPad. Plan to post many more when I return home.

2010-07-26 | roman169 says

Great photos. Thanks Spike.

2010-07-26 | Pattaya Ghost says

“Big Wick” would have drawn more viewers….

2010-07-26 | Lloyd says

Pretty amazing pieces of art, excellent pictures.

2010-07-26 | Billy says

Could have done with the a little light infill on the last one with the monks ….

2010-07-26 | Q’on says

i like ‘big wick’… change it now.

2010-07-26 | Spike says

Q’on, everyone knows you like big wick.

Billy, surely you know that you can never flash a monk.

2010-07-27 | Billy says

well, there was that time in …..