Khan, a Nong Khai native now attending university in Bangkok comes home for the annual Naga fireballs festival, just as a debate is raging over the cause of the fireballs. A local physician, Dr. Nortai, believes there is a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. A university professor, Dr. Suraphol, thinks the fireballs are manmade and are a hoax.Khan knows the truth: Having grown up as a dek wat at a Buddhist temple across the river in Laos, he helped the temple's abbot and the monks there to create fireballs and plant them on the bed on the Mekong. It is how he grew up to become such a strong swimmer and obtain an athletic scholarship.The temple's abbot, Luang Poh Loh, seeks Khan out and begs him to once again help with the planting of the fireballs. But Khan, weary of perpetuating a myth and of the crowds that accompany it, refuses.This sets up a conflict between science and religion that threatens to change the annual celebration.For his part, Luang Poh Loh is philosophical, advising "Do what you believe, believe in what you do."
More than 100,000 people gather by the Mekong River in North-East Thailand on November Full Moon every year. After sunset, mysterious fireballs rise up from the river and disappear into the sky. Where do the fireballs come from? While the locals still adhere to the traditional myth that they are the dragon, Great Naga, making a sacred offering to Buddha, the Western visitors take a more skeptical stance: Dr. Norati sets out to prove that the fireballs are natural while Dr. Surapol wants to prove the phenomenon a hoax. Meanwhile, temple-custodian Abbot Loh believes his monks have been responsible for the "miracle" for the past 30 years.