Carved from wax, all for a single day's parade

The wax sculpture is bigger than a truck, the whole thing carved from beeswax — mythical beasts, Buddhist tales, patterns too intricate to take in at a glance; and the entire reason it exists is to be pushed out onto the streets of Ubon on the day of the Rains Retreat, paraded once. Walking a circle round it, the beeswax glows mellow in the fierce sun, the air a cloying mix of wax and incense. One cannot help thinking: someone spent months carving this single piece.

Khao Phansa marks the start of the monks' Rains Retreat — for the three months of the rainy season ahead, the monks stay in the temple to practise intently, no longer travelling far. Ubon has celebrated this with giant wax sculptures for over a hundred years. Traditionally the faithful offered candles, so the monks would have light to read scripture by through the long rainy nights; later this offering grew larger and the carving more elaborate, until it became these moving temples of wax before you.

The daytime procession beats gongs and drums, the wax sculptures passing slowly one by one, the gold-bright patterns unbelievably fine in the sunlight. A young craftsman walks beside his own sculpture, now and then looking up to check whether any part is close to deforming in the sun, his look like one watching over a child.

A few friends meant only to look a while and go, and ended up following one sculpture after another from one end of the street to the other. The fierce sun leaves one faint, yet at each new sculpture someone gasps "wow" and stops to circle it again. Vendors of iced drinks weave through the gaps in the procession; the few of them each bought a cup and stood in the shade, watching the gold wax glow faintly in the heat. The ice melted fast in the hand, sweet water running down the cup into the cracks of the fingers.

Gongs, chanting, the vendors' calls layered together, the heat leaving one woozy, yet not one of them suggested leaving. The few friends simply stood, walked, watched, none saying much, only now and then pointing at some especially fine detail on a sculpture and sharing a knowing smile. An afternoon so at ease that no words are needed is, in fact, not common.

The procession ends, the sculptures are pushed back to the square for display, and the one who carved it stands beside, not especially proud, like one who has just finished a thing he was always meant to do. One cannot get his name — yet I think you too will remember, as we did: that in this city you had not meant to visit, someone, for one day's parade, spent months and beeswax carving a thing doomed slowly to melt, and then willingly watched it melt.