Phi Ta Khon ghost festival, Phu Kradueng plateau, and Thailand's coldest province
Loei is a remote province in northeastern Thailand bordering Laos, known for two extraordinary things: the Phi Ta Khon Festival (Ghost Festival) at Dan Sai — Thailand's most visually spectacular folk celebration, where elaborately costumed spirits parade through town — and Phu Kradueng National Park, a flat-topped sandstone plateau at 1,300m that is one of Thailand's most popular highland treks. The province is also Thailand's coldest: Loei town has recorded sub-zero temperatures in winter, and the mountain air in December–February is genuinely cold, a novelty in a tropical country. The Loei…
The Dan Sai Phi Ta Khon festival has its origins in a local legend about a visit by the future Buddha (in one of his Jataka tale lives) to Dan Sai — on his return, the townspeople celebrated so exuberantly that even the spirits (phi) of the recently dead rose from their graves to join the party, disguising themselves in colourful patchwork costumes and woven bamboo masks with long carved noses. The festival has been performed annually for centuries; it was largely unknown outside the region until travel writers in the 1980s began documenting its extraordinary visual character. Phu Kradueng ha…