Here's my landlady and her daughter making baskets for the festival.
If I had to guess, I would say a minimum of 90% of the population of Sri Racha came out for the festival. Everyone was on one bridge and a small island. Needless to say it was chaos. In most ways it was just like a fair or festival in the states. They had small games set up similar to bottle caps and horseshoes, lots of food stands, and a ferris wheel. It differed when it came to live (poisonous?) snakes out in the open and the participants setting things on fire and sending them into the sky.
We never saw much more than this and weren't able to figure out exactly what was going on. We could tell, however, that there was nothing between that snake and us other than the people standing in between. We didn't stick around too long...
Where the people gathered to present their offerings was very peaceful, and a nice change from the frenzy on the other side of the island. I could feel the calming vibe as we walked up, and it instantly changed from loud noises and bright lights to beauty and tranquility. It was by far my favorite part, except for when we stood down wind of the balloons and almost caught ourselves on fire. Way to go us.
From what I gather, people start after sunset and continue on until midnight. We stayed only an hour and left around 8:30, and by that time the group had doubled in size. What took us probably 10 minutes to walk before took nearly half an hour coming back. I can't even imagine what it would have been like at midnight.
I realize I should probably edit these photos down a bit, but for now, here's way too many. Some are Lia's and some are mine. Almost all are blurry.
Here we are walking along the bridge on our way to the island. Like I said, it was twice as packed when we were leaving.
Some festival activities on the bridge. This part of it was very familiar for us; or at least for me, having just been at the Renaissance Festival and State Fair. 
There was something jarring about seeing these floating mannequin feet with no legs. It would have been better had I shot them from below, but I didn't want to risk getting trampled by squatting down in such a busy area!
These three are of festival-goers shooting off the hot-air-balloon-esque contraptions. In the third one you can see a group of them in the distant sky. It was great to watch, but they weren't the easiest things to get in the air. It looked sort of like the holder had to coax the balloon into the sky, following it with his hands until the wind caught it. Sometimes this took several attempts and almost set a few people on fire in the process. From what we saw, everyone made it out safely, even us. There were however, several police officers and EMTs waiting on the mainland in case of emergency. I'm not too sure how easily they would have been able to get to anyone with all the crowds..
We sat up on the wat (temple) for awhile and took in the view from the top while enjoying the cool breeze. One thing for sure that has changed since last semester is the weather. It is much much cooler now. I've really been enjoying it. This cat is a wat cat that befriended Lia and Rachel; there are so many animals abandoned at the temples.
These last three photos are different views from the top of the wat. The first is of the dock where many people were sending off their balloons. The second area is where people had offered their KhraThong (floating baskets usually made of banana leaves, filled with flowers, a candle and incense) to the goddess of the water. Everything black in the picture is the Gulf of Thailand, and it was covered in these small baskets. And the third is looking back on the jetty where all of the games, festival food and rides were taking place.
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