LOEI, THAILAND - JULY 09: A young boy dances along with the music from the parade while others in the crowd sit and watch from raised seating on July 09, 2024 in Loei, Thailand. The Phi Ta Khon Festival in Dan Sai, Loei province is a vibrant three-day celebration featuring colorful masked processions, raucous parties, and traditional ghost masks made from dried palm leaves and bamboo sticky rice baskets. Locals dress up in elaborate costumes with exaggerated features, some carrying wooden phalluses as symbols of fertility, while others daub their bodies in mud to represent rice fields. The festival combines elements of Buddhist merit-making, animistic beliefs, and Brahmanistic traditions as the townspeople invite protection from spirits and pray for bountiful rains for the coming farming season. (Photo by Mailee Osten-Tan/Getty Images)