South East Asian Festivals | Festivals in South East Asia

South East Asian Festivals

» 23 articles | 3 snippets | 28 photo galleries | 7 videos | 51 links

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The results listed below include links through to festival articles, festival snippets, festival photo galleries, festival videos and festival web sites external to 2camels that relate to festivals in South East Asia.

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South East Asian Festival Articles

23 festival article(s) returned for South East Asia

Displaying article(s) 1 to 23 ordered by festival name

Article Title: Nueva Ecija, Philippines: home of Araquio

Festival Name: Araquio Festival

Festival Country: Philippines

Festival Type(s): Religious, Cultural, Performing Art

Araquio festival - one of its kind in the Philippines, and maybe in the world as well. It is Nueva Ecija's very own theatrical-cum-religious presentation likened to that of the zarzuelas during the Spaniards regime in the country.

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Article Title: Ati-Atihan Festival

Festival Name: Ati-Atihan Festival

Festival Country: Philippines

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Street Parade, Party

The noise strikes you first. It's thick, heavy, relentless, a bone-rattling clamour that fills every available inch of airspace. It sounds like the march of a thousand jackbooted skeletons on their way to pay a visit on someone unpleasant, like the dentist or the taxman. Your brain takes it in as an all encompassing roar initially, but gradually the different rhythms and tempos become apparent. Over here an intricate staccato. Over there a dull thud. Right over there a mixture of the two but at twice the speed.

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Article Title: Loves, Labours, Laos

Festival Name: Boat Racing Festival

Festival Country: Laos

Festival Type(s): National, Party

Every year, in the end of October, Luang Prabang is a town of celebration. They have a boat races on the river followed by a big party and dance. The day after that, the townspeople have a ceremonial feeding of the monks with offerings of food. Then, the following night, culminating and coinciding with the full moon, there's a lantern festival.

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Article Title: Borobudur - A Weird Kind of Rash and One Hell of a Big Temple

Festival Name: Borobudur Sunrise

Festival Country: Indonesia

Festival Type(s): Religious, Cultural, Historical

It was more the intricacy than the size of Borobudur that first caught my attention. Although undoubtedly immense, the grand scale of Borobudur cannot truly be appreciated from a distance. Not unlike a pyramid or mountain in its overall appearance it challenges the traditional model of a temple in that it lacks an enclosed structure that is home to a depiction of a deity.

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Article Title: Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon - Bumthang Festival

Festival Name: Bumthang Festival

Festival Country: Bhutan

Festival Type(s): Religious, Indigenous

We had flown over eight of the ten highest peaks in the world. The plane banked steeply and dropped through the clouds, skimming the rice paddies and landed at Paro, the only airport in Bhutan. We soon found that the magnificent Terminal Building with over-hanging eaves, elaborately painted walls and carved windows is normal architecture in the country. Another striking feature - everyone wears national dress, so immigration and customs formalities had added interest.

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Article Title: Christmas in a Muslim Country

Festival Name: Christmas

Festival Country: Indonesia

Festival Type(s): Christmas, Religious, New Year

The Equator lies to the south, about a half day's bumpy ride by bus, but the island's elevation negates the tropical latitude. We were dozing, tucked in sleeping bags, when a rousing chorus of Gloria Hallelujah and O Come All Ye Faithful woke us.

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Article Title: Diwali - Festival of Lights

Festival Name: Diwali - Festival of Lights

Festival Country: India

Festival Type(s): Cultural, Traditional

Diwali - The Festival of Lights - apart from being the most widely celebrated is one of the most colorful Indian festivals. It is a festival of joy, splendour, brightness and happiness.

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Article Title: Elephant riding...is this trip necessary?

Festival Name: Elephant Riding in Thailand

Festival Country: Thailand

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Animal

My trip was billed as 'Bangkok and Beyond.' A more suitable title would have been 'Bangkok and WAY Beyond.' Traveling in Thailand offers the dedicated traveler an unrivaled cultural experience in a land where the word exotic still means something.

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Article Title: 'Santacruzan' - The Queen of May

Festival Name: Flores De Mayo (Flowers of May)

Festival Country: Philippines

Festival Type(s): Floral, Religious

Stop and smell the roses. During the month of May, in the tropical islands of the Philippines (where my roots are), we don't have to stop -- the fragrance of flowers floats in the air.

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Article Title: Full Moon Party on Ko Pha-Ngan, Thailand

Festival Name: Full Moon Party

Festival Country: Thailand

Festival Type(s): Lunar, Party, Natural Phenomenon

"A Full Moon Party is not an event," he explains. "It's a happening. There are no controlling organizations, no Full Moon committees. Everybody knows, 'I'm going to the beach, I'm going to party.'"

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Article Title: The Gawai Festival

Festival Name: Gawai Festival

Festival Country: Malaysia

Festival Type(s): New Year, Harvest, Religious

Gawai is an annual festival held every June in the longhouses of lowland tribes in Sarawak. It is a national event, promoted by local brews and municipalities, but in reality everyone leaves the cities empty to return home or visit friends. Gawai is a harvest festival, a New Year celebration, religious ritual and family reunion all at the same time.

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Article Title: Legends of Holi

Festival Name: Holi

Festival Country: India

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Cultural

And Holi, the exuberant festival of colour, which is celebrated at this time of the year to rejoice the advent of Spring, is no exception. Holi is celebrated all over India, every region giving this festival its own flavour, zest and colour.

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Article Title: An Un-Holi Mess

Festival Name: Holi

Festival Country: India

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Cultural

Every visitor to India knows that it is one of the most colourful, noisy, chaotic, beautiful and frustrating countries there is. The festival of Holi encapsulates the intensity and contradictory nature of the country perfectly.

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Article Title: The Holi Festival

Festival Name: Holi

Festival Country: India

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Cultural, Bizarre

Holi is all about colour, namely colour in the hair, colour on the face, colour on your clothes, colour all over the streets and colour just about anywhere else it'll stick.

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Article Title: Thailand's Loy Krathong

Festival Name: Loy Krathong

Festival Country: Thailand

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Fireworks, Cultural

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?

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Article Title: The Dancing Monks of Tengboche

Festival Name: Mani Rimdu Festival

Festival Country: Nepal

Festival Type(s): Religious, Indigenous, Music - Traditional

IT ISN'T MUSIC AND IT HAS NO RHYTHM. Amplified by the clear mountain air, the cacophony of sound is deafening. Conversation becomes impossible and all attention turns to the temple entrance, whence a procession of solemn faced monks is emerging.

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Article Title: Mardi Gras the Philippine Style

Festival Name: Philippines' Mardi Gras

Festival Country: Philippines

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Street Parade, Mardi Gras

New Orleans is not the only home of Mardi Gras, there are four of them right here in the Philippines, with our own unique styles and ethnic origins.

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Article Title: Baripada Rath Yatra

Festival Name: Rath Yatra

Festival Country: India

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Cultural

Think Juggernaut. Your mind evokes images of a huge, crushing rolling force that spares nothing in its way. This word springs from Lord Jagannatha, the presiding deity of the state of Orissa, India.

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Article Title: The Wetter the Better - Thailand's Songkran Festival

Festival Name: Songkran Water Festival

Festival Country: Thailand

Festival Type(s): Bizarre, Traditional

Imagine this scene: scads of Clampett-like hillbilly families crammed into the back of pickup trucks, chugging along in bumper-to-bumper traffic and squirting water at other vehicles and pedestrians. The water warriors use squirt guns, super soakers, hoses, buckets, garbage cans and anything else they can get their hands on in order to disperse their liquid ammunition. Drive-by squirtings everywhere.

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Article Title: The Elephant Round Up in Surin

Festival Name: Surin Elephant Festival

Festival Country: Thailand

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Animal, Cultural

People come from the far ends of the Kingdom even foreigners pour in bus and train loads from the likes of Bangkok and Chiang Mai. They all come to see what Asia's largest animal - the lovable elephant - can do and they rarely go away disappointed.

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Article Title: Thaipusam - Festival of Faith

Festival Name: Thaipusam

Festival Country: Malaysia

Festival Type(s): Traditional, Bizarre, Religious

As an avid attendee of matsuri (traditional festivals) across my adopted home country of Japan, I had thought there was little to touch them in terms of color, vivacity and raw animism. Until I went to Malaysia's Thaipusam festival, that is.

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Article Title: Flowers, Floats, and Fun: The Festivals of Thailand

Festival Name: The Festivals of Thailand

Festival Country: Thailand

Festival Type(s): National, Traditional, Cultural

Hardly a fortnight goes by in Thailand without some kind of celebration, traditional or otherwise. This is not an exaggeration. The Thais celebrate their royal family, flowers, departed kings, their constitution, Buddhism, children, teachers, fruit, and elephants. They celebrate three new years. And, during their most unabashedly gleeful holiday, Song Kran, they even celebrate being soaking wet.

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Article Title: Torajan Funeral

Festival Name: Torajan Funeral

Festival Country: Indonesia

Festival Type(s): Religious, Indigenous, Traditional

Whatever the sights, there's no doubt that the highlight of a trip to Tana Toraja, the area of central Sulawesi whose capital is Rantepao, is to visit a funeral. This is easier than it sounds: because the funeral celebrations take a lot of preparation, not to mention expense, the Torajans have two funerals for each death, much like the Balinese; the first one is a private affair straight away after the death, and the body is preserved in the house where it died until the necessary cash has been saved up for the second one, a much bigger, more public affair. Because the second funeral is effectively a huge party and can be held at any time, it tends to be organised for between July and October when the relatives can come to visit more easily, during the school holidays. This leads to the strange concept of the Funeral Season, which Rose and I were lucky enough to catch the end of.

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