Loi Krathong festival in Thailand

Yesterday Thailand celebrated the annual Loi Krathong festival. The Buddhist event involves creating flower-based offerings, made with bamboo and banana leaves and decorated with candles and incense, and lighting/floating them on rivers/lakes. The name Loi Krathong means floating offering. The act of lighting/floating these creations is meant to be "symbolic of letting go of all one's grudges, anger and defilements, so that one can start life afresh on a better foot."
I was invited to the festival by a lady called Ay - who was my tour guide earlier in the week. She and I got on really well, and are the same age, and it was a real honour and pleasure to go to the event with her and her friend Goy.
She picked me up from my hotel on her scooter, and we travelled to a lake near Chaweng for the evening. She had bought me one krathong, and I got another one too from the stalls on the side of the road. People lit the candles and incense and floated their flowers out onto the water, saying a silent prayer in the process. After that, there were fireworks across the lake - and families lit giant paper lanterns, saying prayers as you let them float off into the sky. It was a pretty incredible sight - as people from all countries, races, ages and religions lit their offerings by the water. Check out some of my photos from the night:

Some krathongs: