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Just a week after the Loy Krathong festival we were back at the Mabprachan Reservoir just outside Pattaya, this time to view the annual races of the traditional Thailand long boats.
These craft are designed to be rowed by crews of either 30 or 50 rowers each operating a single paddle, and two boats race at a time over a straight course parallel to the reservoir dam.
This is the third year that the event has been staged in Pattaya, and an enthusiastic crowd (and even more enthustic commentator) were on hand to view the proceedings and cheer on their favourite team.
The event was actually staged over two days with the finals on the Sunday, so it was after lunch on that second day that we went along to view, the event being blessed again with a fine sunny weekend.
The dam offered a superb viewpoint with a wide road running the length of the top, and in spite of the many stalls and covered awnings, mostly provided for the crews to rest between events, it was easy to get a clear view of nearly the whole course.
We watched several closely fought races but as the commentary was entirely in Thai, although we could clearly see which craft had won each race, we remained confused as to how the overall winners were established.
We could see that the races were split into 30 crew events and 50 crew events and it appeared to be some sort of a knockout competition but each time we thought we were watching the finals, another race followed just to confuse us.
Finally as the invited guests moved to the prize giving stands, we thought the racing had completed, only to see yet another event take place.
However presumably somebody knew who the winners were as after that the various prizes and cups were handed out.
Even this had a uniquely Thai flavour for the main prizes were named in honour of two of the Royal Princesses and although they were not present in person, the cups were arrayed beneath large portraits of them.
The winners then ‘received’ their trophies from their Royal Patrons by bowing to the portraits and taking their cup.
The sun was setting as the event concluded and in spite of the confusion about how the events were staged we had all had an enjoyable day out watching the proceedings, not the least enlivened by the cheering crowds and a commentary team that when the races were running made Peter O’Sullivan sound dumbstruck.
A selection of photos of the day follows, to view any of these in full size, just click on the appropriate thumbnail.
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