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Monday, December 15, 2025

Stainless Steel Boat Race in Suphanburi

I enjoyed the Long Tail Boat Races at Wat Mai Songkrorat (วัดใหม่สงเคราะห์ราษฎร์) a few months ago. I tried to find another race and it seemed to have been canceled or I just misunderstood where and when it was taking place but when I saw the following event I decided to give it a try.



Not sure if it is in the above picture but the text on the facebook post had that this event was the Stainless Steel Boat Race (แข่งเรือสแตนเลส) at Ban Phai Kon Din, Suphanburi (บ้านไผ่กอนดิน สุพรรณบุรี) taking place on the 14th of December. It also said it was the last racing event of 2025.

I found a Ban Phai Kon Din in the province of Suphanburi and rode up to the city of Suphanburi on the 13th and booked a hotel for 2 nights. The following morning I rode out to the pin on my map that was Ban Phai Kon Din. I did not see anything that looked like boat racing at the spot of my pin. I rode around a bit and did not seem to find anything that look like a crowd of people to watch a race so I stop and decide I would try to ask about it. I had the above picture on my phone and walked up to a food stand and said in my best Thai "Hello, Do you know where this is" and pointed at the picture.

I am used to the faces of fear on peoples faces when they see this big ugly foreigner approach but the faces changed as soon as the Thai hello came out of my mouth and smiles appeared on their faces. One lady took my phone and seemed to know where I wanted to go. I did not understand much of the conversation that took place between these 3 ladies but I understood it was somewhere close to a temple but never did understand the name of the temple and then one lady said something that I understood as I go you follow me even though I do not know the word for follow.

She hopped on a motorbike and lead me a few kilometer away to a place I could see the crowd and somewhere I never would have found without the help. She stopped and pointed to the crowd and I think said there. I said thank you very much and asked if I could give her a little money and she accepted the 100 baht (about $3) from me.

I found a place to park and got out my chair and umbrella and sat down and waited for the races to start. While waiting a couple of people came along that seemed to be taking a video and sort of interviewed me. Following is the picture that was posted on facebook later of the interview.



This is the guy that I follow on facebook at DJKai Livestream that provides the info on the races. We talked with a little bit of English and a little bit of Thai and a lot of me saying I don't understand. If you want to watch me make a fool of myself it is in the following facebook video at about 26:50.



It did not seem to be a good day for racing with a lot of wind and I think they delayed the racing in hopes that the wind would die down but it never really did. They did do some racing but think there would have been a lot more if the weather was better but still an interesting day.

Following is the short I uploaded while sitting at the races and drinking a beer.



Following is the video I uploaded after returning home.

Saturday, December 6, 2025

Kanchanaburi Bridge Festival 2025

I arrived back in Kanchanaburi while The Bridge Festival was taking place. I had been living in Kanchanaburi for over 2 years but have not attended one of the shows that take place at the bridge festival each year.

I decided to correct this oversight this year and am so happy I did. In my last post I talked about being disappointed with the festival in Bangkok but the Kanchanaburi Bridge Festival 2025 did not disappoint and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Following is a video where I attempted to capture a bit of the show.



Even though I had missed the main show at the festival in the past 2 years I did walk through the area of food stalls and amusement rides. This part of the festival is not really my sort of thing but if you want to get to the concert area you have to walk through these crowded areas.



I don't think I have shared this YouTube short on this blog in the past. It is of the end of a Mahahing concert I attend at the bridge festival back in 2023. I have not seen Mahahing again but I am keeping an eye out for one of their concerts.



I have attend a number of festival concerts in the past three years but this year I have only attended one and it was of Joey Phuwasit. A great concert and really happy to get to see him preform.



Monday, December 1, 2025

Recent Videos

I attempt to post some of my travels while I am still on the road. I currently only travel with my phones so don't edit and upload the longer until I am back at home. This means often the videos are not included in the original post. I do go back and update the original blog post and put in these videos but if someone has been following my travels as I post they may have missed these videos. Here are the videos you may have recently missed and I will remove this post in a month or so.

Following is the video I put together of the Ban Rai Temple once I retured home.





Following is the video I put together of the Elephant show once I retured home.



Following is the video I put together of the Elephant parade through the city of Surin after I retured home.



Following is the video I put together of the Elephant Breakfast in Surin after I retured home.



Following is the video I put together of the Muay Thai once I retured home.



Sunday, November 30, 2025

Bangkok's Vijit Chao Phraya Light Festival and Drone Shows

After my time in Surin I headed over to Pattaya and drank and ate too much while wasting a bit of time before heading to Bangkok. I kept seeing things about the Light Festival and Drone Shows in Bangkok and decided to check it out.

Following are a few pictures of my time in Bangkok.

Wat Arun (วัดอรุณ)



Wat Kanlayanamit (วัดกัลยาณมิตร)



Santa Cruz Church (วัดซางตาครู้ส)



1,000 Drones Show



Following is the short that I uploaded to YouTube that is just a slide show of pictures I took during the show.



On Friday I rode to Bangkok and found a hotel for 2 nights. I made it down to an area in front of the Phra Phutthayotfa Bridge (สะพานพระพุทธยอดฟ้า) or what I know as Memorial Bridge. The drone shows would take place at the bridge with a 500 drone show on Friday and an 1,000 drone show on Saturday. I understood the light show would start at 7PM and the Drone shows was at 8:45.

Before going on my opinion of the light show and drone shows was disappointment and I would not recommend traveling to see this. If you happen to be in Bangkok when this is happening maybe check it out but a trip to Bangkok to see this was a bit silly of me.

I arrived a bit before 7 on Friday and was luck to find a place to sit with an OK view of the bridge. The light show on the bridge repeated every 30 minutes so I saw it 4 times before the drone show started. They had 2 screens at each end of the bridge that showed some pictures and the lights on the bridge flashed and changed colors. I think they usually also have fireworks but the Queen Mother recently past away so the fireworks were canceled this year.

UPDATE: Since getting back to Kanchanaburi I have read they have reinstated the fireworks so if you thinking about going to the show it should have the fireworks now.

I think I have been more impressed with some homes with Christmas lights that I have seen in the past.

The Friday 500 drone show was better than the light show but lasted less that 15 minutes and not what I expected. I know drone shows are supposed to be a replacement of firework shows but I think the fireworks are much better.

I had read that the light shows were about 5 different places in Bangkok so spent some of Saturday looking into the other places. I found one video of the light show at ICONSIAM (ไอคอนสยาม) and think it may be better than the one at Memorial Bridge light show but decided I saw enough of it on the video so didn't go there. I could not find videos on any of the others places so decied to check out the show at the Royal Thai Naval Institute (อาคารสำนักงานราชนาวิกสภา).

I watched the Royal Thai Naval Institute from the Tha Tian Pier (ท่าเรือท่าเตียน) and it was less impressive than the lights at Memorial Bridge. I did enjoy being at the Tha Tian Pier. It is the pier to catch the cross river ferry to go to Wat Arun and is where I took the picture at the top of this post.

I had moved to the end of the pier closest to the Royal Thai Naval Institute to try and see the show and had sat there and took some pictures of Wat Arun. I didn't know that the last ferry ran while I was sitting on the pier and they they had closed the enterance/exit. It was only closed by a twisted wire so once I found the exit didn't have a problem getting out but scared me for a minute.

I walked down towards the The Grand Palace (พระบรมมหาราชวัง) to see if I could get a picture of it lit up at night but never found a place with a good view. I walked back to the area called Yodpiman (ยอดพิมาน) where I had planned to watch the Saturday drone show but it was crowded and I could not find a spot with a view I liked. I decided to walk to the other side of the Memorial Bridge to try and get to the same places I had watched the Friday show. It was a bit of a fight to get through the crowd with all the people cramed on the bridge even thought the announcement said that being on the bridge was a bad place to see the show.

I made it to the place I wanted to be with about 5 minutes before the start of the show. It was more crowded than the Friday show but I was happy with my view of the drones. Even though the number of drones was doubled I did not find the show any more impressive.

This was a really long post to say sometimes playing tourist is great but sometime it is a bit disappoiting. At least I am not burning vacation time and it didn't cost that much so I still am lucky and just will not attend this festival next year.