Asalha Puja and Vassa

I will have a long weekend this weekend, 5 days including Saturday and Sunday. 7th and 8th are both religious days, 7th is Asalha Puja which was the day the buddha gave the sermon for the first time and he taught about what he found. The Asalha Puja is not exactly on the same date every year. Actually it is always on the fullmoon date on the eight lunar month. If there are 2 eight lonar months in that year, the Asalha Puja will be on the fullmoon date of the latter month.

Well I cant explain about how do we know which year will have 2 eight lunar months. I tried to read about it from some thai websites but I didnt understand about it at all. The best way to know is looking at the calendar!!

8th is a day called Vassa, also called rain retreated. Vassa is the traditional retreat during the rainy season lasting for three lunar months from July to October.

Well since writing about religions is kind of hard for me, so im gonna copy some details about it from wikipedia.

Vassa begins on the first day of the waning moon of the eighth lunar month; the preceding day is Asalha Puja. The focus of celebration by the laity is the first day of Vassa (or Wan Kao Pansa) during which worshippers donate candles and other necessities to temples, in a ceremony which has reached its most extravagant form in the Ubon Ratchathani Candle Festival.

During this time Buddhist monks remain in a single place, generally in their temples. In some monasteries, monks dedicate the Vassa to intensive meditation. During Vassa, many Buddhist lay people reinvigorate their spiritual training and adopt more ascetic practices, such as giving up meat, alcohol, or smoking (Vassa is sometimes known as "Buddhist Lent", though at least one prominent Theravada monk has objected to this usage). And in countries such as Thailand, the laity will often take monastic vows for period of Vassa and return to lay life afterwards. Commonly, the number of years a monk has spent in monastic life is expressed by counting the number of Vassas he has observed.

For 6th, originally it was not a government holiday. The government had just announced it to be a holiday for this year so that we could have the long weekend and travel within the country so the country could get more income from it.