We figured she was talking about some
kind of typical tourist trap, you know, the
kind where she can make a little money
on commission for bringing us there: the
snake charmer, the gold temple, or the
monkey arena. But our driver had a diff-
erent sort of tone about her voice. We
could sense even she was excited about it as
she mentioned something about a lantern fest-
ival in her broken English. Lantern festival?!
There was little hesitation within our
group, and so off we went on an
adventure.
Around 9 pm we turned on a pothole-
filled dirtroad and the truck finally came
to a jostled restin the middle of this huge
field of cut grain. Itwas twilight, dirty. The
moonlit hoods of vehicles spanned as far as the
eye could see. In the distance, a low drone of
drums, chanting, a hazy glow of fire above
the trees.
We set off towards the orange glow and
music. As we caught up to the crowd, we
were astonished by the sheer scale of
this event. Easily 100,000 people, elbow
to elbow, across a green grassy field with a
mound of monks centered at the far end. We
were clearly the strangers in the crowd. As we
entered what I can only call the arena, we came
past the crowded tent where we purchased our
lanterns, and were quickly ushered into the
field. We got the sense we were definitely late
to theparty. To our great surprise we were taken