On the first day of the Bun Bang Fai, the village comes alive with a wild and colorful festival. The revelry precedes a long and arduous agricultural season. The fun-loving villagers dress in traditional costumes and sing, dance, eat, and generally make merry. Partiers keep themselves entertained with comical beauty parades, folk dancing, and stage shows. The second day of the festival is dedicated to the launching of the rockets.
Local men fashion the rockets, stuffing bamboo shoots with homemade gunpowder.
The large projectiles are blessed with the village spirit through an offering of food to local monks. A huge crowd gathers at Phaya Thaen Park for the heavy-duty fireworks display, and then the missiles are fired off from the highest structure available. The crowd cheers the successfully launched rockets, and he whose rocket stays in the sky longest, wins. The party is going to be a riot, but just getting to Yasothon is going to be an adventure. Although similar festivals are held in nearby Ubon and Nong Khai, which are easier to find.