BUN BANG FAI

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The most famous "BUN BANG FAI" (ประเพณีบุญบั้งไฟ) or rocket festival is happening in Yasothon, located in Isan region - Northeast of Thailand.

There are multiple ways to go to Yasothon. One way is to take a plane from Bangkok to Ubon Ratchathani. Then to take a direct bus from Ubon to Yasothon.

There are also some direct buses from Bangkok to Yasothon.

Yasothon is very crowded during the rocket festival so better book hotel in advance. A good choice is the J.P. Emerald Hotel, which is close to the main street where the parade happens.

Fly there with Google Earth).

Many Thai and foreign tourists flock to Yasothon to see the famous Rocket festival.

The hotel offers nice panoramic views over the "Mae Chi" river in Yasothon.

Huge procession floats starts to be gathered and parked on the main road, that is half closed.

The first day is quite quiet with all the procession floats gathering near the Yasothon City Hall area.

Good opportunity for pictures as the crowd is not yet big. The action starts end of afternoon!

The modern floats are richly decorated and feature a rocket launch pad. They are not used to launch real rockets.

King Rama IV portrait displayed among the rich colorful decorations of the procession floats.

The big rockets, launched into the sky during the festival, are a symbolic call to the rain god in order to have bountiful crops. A few phallic symbols can be seen as they also represent fertility.

The procession floats shown during Yasothon's rocket festival are really impressive and beautiful.

Some procession floats are using local pickup cars, which are decorated and carry Bun Bang Fai festival symbols.

This is one of the official posters for Rocket Festival 2015. The highlights of the first day are two team contests (beauty contest and cheering contest).

The highlight of the second day is the parade.

This is one of the official posters for Rocket Festival 2015. The highlight of the third day is the rockets launch.

During the afternoon of the first day, there is a cheering team contest (ชมการประกวดกองเชียร์). So many teams wear funny and extravagant clothes.

Many concert stages are built all over the city along the main road. Even monks are giving a hand on some of them.

On the first day during the afternoon, all stages are doing manual settings so it is super noisy along Chaeng Sanit Road.

Maybe around 30 stages are built along Chaeng Sanit Road. There are even smaller stages on adjacent roads.

A few professional beautiful sexy dancers are hired by the concert stage organisers.

A few professional beautiful sexy dancers are hired by the concert stage organisers. They might performance coyote dances.

The main street becomes reserved for pedestrians.

The main street of the city, i.e. Chaeng Sanit Road, is full of animation during the full night.

On the evening, a big beauty contest including 50 local beauty queens is organized (ประกวดธิดาบั้งไฟโก้).

Fly there with Google Earth)

The beauty contest lasts the whole evening. A big stage is set up and some judges are voting to select the most beautiful local beauty queen.

The beauty queens are wearing crazy high heels shoes.

On the first day of Rocket festival, it is a huge party including booze, dance and singing along the main street of the city.

In 2015, it was the 21^th year anniversary of jumelage with Japanese festival celebrated in Chichibu.

On each stage, there are groups of friends singing and drinking. Normally each group is coming from various subdistricts of Yasothon. Each concert stage get noted by judges travelling on a small van.