Fireworks Displays

I awoke to the sound of firecrackers or explosives at the very least. This was merely pre-Fallas, a warm-up for the enormous celebration yet to come. The fiesta was a week away, yet very much on the minds of every Valencian.

As with many traditional festivals, the Thai festival of Loy Krathong, known as Yi Peng in the north, has many conflicting explanations of its purposes. Is it a Brahmanic rite honoring the dead? A plea for an end to the rainy season? A celebration of the end of rice planting? An act of repentance for dirtying the river, an act of homage to the River Goddess Mae Khong Kha, or worship of the heavens generally? Is it a way of ridding oneself of bad luck, or the accumulated sins of the year past? Or is it merely another excuse for fun-loving Thais to whoop it up?

Missing were the 'ooos' and 'ahhhs' heard at typical fireworks displays. The people sitting huddled under panchos and sheltered under a rainbow of umbrellas came to Montmorency Falls, just outside Quebec City, to witness a special kind of magic - the final display of the three-week long Les Grands Feux Loto-Quebec fireworks competition. A steady rain didn't stop them and neither did a mist so thick they could taste it.