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.
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.
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.
Last year I attend the Elephant Round-Up Festival in Surin and enjoyed it so I'm back in Surin a year later.
Last year I attend the show twice but this year I only went to the dress rehearsal on Thursday. I will make a longer video when I get back home but following is the short I uploaded while at the show with the Thai Elephant song.
Following is the video I put together of the Elephant show once I retured home.
Last year I attend the elephant breakfast on Friday but didn't attend the parade through the city. I asked about the parade route when checking into my hotel in Surin so I could see this part of the festival that I missed last year.
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.
YouTube has driven me a bit nuts with the short I uploaded while in Surin. It has this computer voice trying to translate the Thai elephant song. I thought maybe the voice was in the music I selected so download the video and that auto voice was not in file I downloaded. I uploaded the video a second time and again that computer voice was back. At some point I noticed the video had something on the screen saying auto dubbing was turned on. If you want to hear the chang song without the very incorrect translation, you can set the audio to Thai. I have not figured out how to disable auto dubbing on my channel yet. I think it may not be possible with just a phone so hopefully I can correct it when I am at home and my computer.
I was able to find and disable the auto dubbing on new video uploads when at home and not just using the Youtube Studio phone app. This short has now been uploaded 3 times but I think I have the issue corrected.
A couple of great days watching and a bit of interacting with the elephants.
