Narathiwat Ko Lae Boat Racing Festival

Narathiwat's Kolae boat races, held on the Bang Nara River in front of the province's Throne Hall, showcase the distinctive hand-painted fishing boats of Thailand's deep south. Part of the broader Narathiwat Products Fair, the races sit alongside other regional traditions like sedge-mat weaving and longkong fruit celebrations.

The Kolae boat is a working fishing vessel native to the coastal communities of Thailand's deep south and the adjoining east coast of peninsular Malaysia, built with a distinctive raised bow and stern and traditionally covered in intricate hand-painted motifs, floral patterns, mythical creatures, and geometric designs rendered in bright colors that made individual boats, and by extension individual fishing families, recognizable from a distance out at sea.