Rocket Festival Patiu District (บุญบั้งไฟ อำเภอป่าติ้ว)

My light on the motorbike indicating I needed to change the oil started flashing on the ride to Yasoton. I took care of that first thing in the morning. I then went to the local market and bought some fruit for breakfast. Bananas and Jack fruit.

The only festival today was marked as Patiu District and nothing more specific. Most of the entries have a village name and than the district name. I decided to just go and see what I could find.

I stopped to fill up the go go fluid in the motorbike when I entered the district. I asked if they had rocket today. I got a befuddled look in return. I had opened the picture I have of the schedule while she was filling the tank because I am use to and expect that befuddled look when ever I try to speak Thai. She looked at the schedule and understood and said the word I thought I used for rocket. I then asked where? She pointed straight ahead and then motioned left. Not really the type of specific directions I was hoping for but off I went.

I rode straight for awhile and then at an intersection there were a few bikes and a car turning left so I followed. It turns out those people knew where I wanted to go.

It was a large festival with a lot of people and a number of rockets.

This is a photo of the tents where they prepare the rockets before putting them on the launch platform.

I uploaded the following short to YouTube while at the festival but it has heavy rock music so you may want to turn down the volume before clicking on it.



I spent around 4 hours at the festival and when I was riding away the sky opened up and down came the rain. It was a very wet ride for about 30km back to my hotel but another great day of rockets.