7 Fantastic Festivals in Thailand You Shouldn’t Miss

#1. Songkran Festival (Water Festival)

Location: Everywhere

Time: 13th to the 15th April

Songkran Festival, also known as Water Festival, is the most solemn festival in Thailand. It was also known as the Thai New Year in Thailand.

The Songkran Festival is held every year from April 13th to 15th and lasts for three days. The festival is highly dependent on water, which symbolically washes away the previous year, allowing people to prepare for the New Year. It’s also a time of family reunion, when relatives who have moved away return for the holiday to spend time with their loved ones.

During the festival, various traditions are celebrated; but the one tradition it’s most famous for is water splashing. Thai locals and travellers alike drench each other with water using hoses, squirt guns and any other water carrying container.

At the major streets where Songkran is celebrated at its peak, you will find pubs and bars with an open dancing area. Blaring music and even dancers appear to take the event up a notch. Sweet girls and boys also go around painting people in natural color powder. Carry electronics only in waterproof packets or don’t carry them at all.

#2. Visakha Buka (Buddha's Birthday)

Location: Major temples

Time: May or June

Thailand is one of the largest Buddhist nations in the world; nearly 95% of Thailand's population follows Buddhism. In Thailand, Buddha’s birthday is known as Visakha Buka and it is a public holiday. Buddha's Birthday is the most solemn Buddhist festival in Thailand. It is a festival to celebrate the birth, enlightenment and nirvana of Sakyamuni Buddha, usually in May every year. The exact date of festival is the first full moon in the fourth month of the Thai calendar. The date varies from year to year in the Gregorian calendar but is typically in May or June.

In 2023, Visakha Buka will be held on May 6th. On the day of the festival, almost every household will go to the local temple to participate in various Buddhist activities, especially in the evening, almost larger temples will hold incense candles to pray for blessings. Participants must hold incense and circle the temple three times. In addition, many temples also hold chanting ceremony.

It is a holy day, so shops, bars and restaurants are barred from selling alcohol for 24 hours from midnight until midnight. All Government offices and many businesses will be closed. Schools and colleges may hang out yellow Buddhist flags to mark the day.

#3. Yi Peng Festival (Lantern Festival) and Loy Krathong Festival (the festival of light)

Location: Chiang Mai

Held Time: November

Yi Peng Festival, also known as lantern festival, takes place on the full moon of the 12th month of the Thai calendar (usually in November) every year. The highlight of the festival is the release of paper lanterns. Watching thousands of candle-lit paper lanterns floating into the night sky with the full moon as the backdrop is a truly magnificent sight. Aside from releasing paper lanterns into the sky, the celebrations include religious events, street parades, cultural activities, and firework displays.

In other area of Thailand, Loy Krathong Festival (the festival of light) is held at the same day. Loy Krathong is celebrated by making a “Kratong” which is a slice of banana tree trunk decorated with banana leaves, flowers, a candle, and incense sticks. Then, they launch a Krathong on a river or a canal, make a wish, and apologize to the goddess of water while letting it float.

#4. Phuket Vegetarian Festival

Location: Phuket

Held Time: September or October

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is another major festival in Thailand that takes place on the 9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually in September or October). It celebrates the local Chinese community’s belief that abstinence from meat, onion, garlic, and various other stimulants will lead to food health and peace of mind. Hence, the name Vegetarian Festival.

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is one of the largest annual events in Phuket. It originated from foreign immigrant workers in the nineteenth century, and residents of Chinese descent began a nine-day vegetarian fast. It is believed that the Vegetarian Festival and the accompanying religious ceremonies will bring good luck to those devout who attend the ceremonies. Those religious people stab themselves with swords, bruise their own cheeks with sharp objects, or some other painful act to wash away their sins.

Despite its name, however, the festival gains popularity among travellers worldwide because of its over-the-top rituals and bizarre displays. Participants take part in activities like walking on hot coals, laying on knives, or piercing their cheeks and other body parts using swords and other spiked objects – not for the faint-hearted.

The belief behind this body disfiguration ritual is that the Chinese gods will protect the participants from harm in return for the painful demonstrations. In addition to the gruesome activities, there are also dancing, chanting and fireworks, lots of fireworks.

#5. Ghost Festival (Phi Ta Khon)

Location: Dan Sai, Loei Province

Held Time: June or July

Combining religious traditions, local handicrafts and fun-loving party atmosphere, Phi Ta Khon is a 3-day festival that’s renowned for the colorful masks worn by thousands of locals. The masks are ghastly, stretched faces decorated in bright, gaudy colours.

The origin of the festival is a mixture of animist and Buddhist beliefs. It's supposed to recreate the legend of when a party that was so fun, everyone wanted to attend – living or dead. The Ghost Festival is held on the weekend of the 6th full moon of the lunar calendar. It usually has the main parade on the Friday (dressing up as a ghost optional), with pageants and music on the Saturday and Buddhist ceremonies on the Sunday.

Located in Dan Sai Town in Loei Province, the Ghost Festival is quite hard to get to. It’s easiest from Udon Thani (a 3-hour bus journey) or Chiang Mai (5-hour bus journey). From Bangkok, buses leave from Mo Chit Northern Bus Terminal about 5 times a day. It’s around a 7-hour journey. As Dan Sai is a small town, accommodation gets booked up quickly, so make sure you book your hotel or guesthouse early.

#6. Boon Bang Fai (Rocket Festival)

Location: Yasothorn Province

Time: May

Also known as Bamboo Cannon Festival, Bang Fai is a homemade rocket made of bamboo, plastic, wood, paper, and fuelled with gunpowder. These rockets may not reach space, but it flies into the sky to honor the god of rain – Phraya Taen and ask for rain.

In the farming communities of Issan (north-eastern Thailand), rocket festivals are important events attended by entire villages as they’re considered the last big ‘knees-up’ before the planting season begins. Given that Thailand is blessed with rich soil, the country also celebrates rice-growing traditions with the goal of asking the Gods for rainfall.

The rockets are meant to encourage the gods to send plentiful rains to help the precious rice crops grow, with teams building ever more elaborate rockets. They are paraded around on the first day of the festival before being launched high into the air throughout the weekend. Supposedly, huge sums are gambled on who can build the best rocket, but considering gambling is illegal in Thailand we can’t confirm this. If any rocket fails to launch, the builders of the said rocket are playfully thrown into a mud bath as punishment.

During this Thai festival, you can expect huge rockets paraded in the street, and that the three days will be filled with music, food, partying, and lots of local rice wine.

#7. Lopburi Monkey Banquet

Location: Lopburi

Held Time: Last Sunday of November

Located 150 km north of Bangkok, Lopburi is best known for its packs of monkeys, thanks to the central temple being overrun by the pesky simians. It’s a popular tourist activity to feed the monkeys but, during November, the simple bags of sunflower seed you can buy are replaced by something much grander.

There’s a huge banquet laid out for the approximately 3,000 monkeys and they are allowed to feast on 4 tons of fruits, vegetables and other treats. Do be aware that the Lopburi monkeys will climb on you and try to take your food or valuables, so you should keep your wits about you. The festival was firstly held in 1989 and held annually ever since.