Presenting Robes
In these busy times, when convenience often takes precedence over spiritual matters, many people simply purchase the robes from a shop and hand them over with minimal ceremony. It hasn't always been so. Traditionally, entire villages would band together in a united effort to pick the cotton and clean it, spin into thread, weave the thread into cloth to be dyed and presented to the temple - all within 24 hours!

Safeguarding tradition
Unfortunately, this tradition is in decline, even in the countryside, but safeguards are in sight. In an effort to preserve the ceremony and reinforce the important values it represents, Thammasat University and more than 40 villages in the Mae Jam district in Thailand's north have joined forces to make it an annual event.

Thai people are masters at mixing piety and fun, so the ceremony is combined with a festival, complete with parades, traditional music and dancing, displays of fighting prowess, fireworks, and plenty of food.

Mountain retreat
The festival takes place at Yang Luang village in Doi Inthanon National Park in Chiang Mai Province - home to many hill tribes. This picturesque little hamlet sits in a fertile valley encircled by the country's tallest mountains. Little has changed here in the last hundred years: modern conveniences, such as electricity and navigable roads, connected this place to the outside world less than twenty years ago. The local economy remains based on the cultivation of rice and other subsistence crops. Life here is still relatively simple, making it an ideal spot to preserve an ancient tradition.