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What to do with an old parachute
If you have an old parachute lying around use it as a tent, sun shade, roof for a merry-go-round, anything!These monks have found a good use for it! If any of you have spent your evenings wondering what the combination of cross-dressing, temples, sex and explosives is I now have the solution to your pondering: The Lao Rocket Festival!
Every year just before the rainy season all along the Mekong river villages hold rocket festivals, otherwise known as Bun Bang Fai. Shooting rockets into the air while all the young virile (and not so virile) males are running around in dresses and wigs, with wooden models that very clearly represent “fertility” as they grind back and forth together are all meant to help in bringing forth the rains and prosperous crops for the year. What makes all this a little bit even more surreal, is that it can often take place in or around the village temple. As you can see in the video, the parade with the copulating models goes straight past a reclining Buddha.
We arrived at the village after a bit of an adventure laden start that included being fined by some very honest policemen for illegally parking, and French pastries. However, that really isn’t as interesting as the cross-dressing rocket launchers so I will just try to stick to the main point of
Bring on the fertility festival
If a couple times a year Lao men can have the excuse to dress up a touch more feminine than usual to bring on the rains no-one should hold them back... the story….
When we arrived the crowds were only just starting to gather, the Lao lao (Lao traditional, home brewed whiskey) was beginning to flow and the Beer Lao had already begun. It was 1 in the afternoon on a festival day afterall! The fan powered, used parachute tented merry-go-round was circling around with children on the rather old and rusty looking wooden horses, the jumping castle was just beginning to be blown up (no pun intended), the balloon dart game was set up and waiting for its first customers willing to try their luck to win a bottle of Red Bull or yoghurt drink and more BBQ chicken and papaya salad stalls were set up with more chicken on display than you think could ever be eaten. A lot of tasty chickens died for this day.
We followed the crowds of people carrying rockets out the back side of the temple grounds and saw the bamboo/wooden rocket launch structures that had been set up on the edge of the rice fields. It was nice to know that the rockets were at least meant to be fired away from the crowds and village into the fields. Now perhaps
Rocket coming through....
This gong-man was part of the parade that leads the rocket for each village to the launch...People were dancing, singing, laughing, drinking.... it would help to try and describe these rockets for you. The rockets are made out of either bamboo or blue PVC pipes, closed at the top and stuffed with cloth at the bottom end. They are tied to bamboo sticks that are used to help fix the rocket to the launch when they fire it. There were 10 year olds wandering around with small rockets, and the men (in dresses with apples down their shirts as fake boobs of course) were in groups carrying their 10kg, 15 kg, 50 kg, or even heavier rockets on their shoulders. Quite often as the rocket was making its way to the launch it would be preceded by a parade of people with drums and gongs, singing, dancing, led by an elaborately femininely dressed man. The rockets were filled with sulphur and something else and then filled with water just before launch. The water is supposed to stop the rocket from exploding outwardly, concentrating the power into shooting it up into the air instead.
Each village in the area has a rocket entered in the day that they have communally created and it is part of the competition of the day to
Party favourites...
yum yum...fried crickets anyone? see what village has the most beautiful, powerful rocket. Apparently a lot of money is bet on which village will earn the honour of having the wining rocket each year.
As we were walking around a few random small rockets were going off around us shooting off into the sky. We bumped into a couple of Vientiane resident Aussie guys who had gotten together with one of their gardeners to create and test their own smallish rocket to see what would happen. Grace and I felt it needed a bit more decoration and bought a small doll and teddy bear hairband which we hooked on the rocket. Maybe my risk barrier is getting lower, or maybe not, but I have to admit I was a bit disturbed when we returned to the table after buying the very stylish decorations and found no-one there and the rocket lying on the ground. We bent down and got to work decorating when I noticed that a still burning cigarette but was burning about 3cms away from the ignition end of the rocket.
Meanwhile, although there were two official launching sites for the rocket festival there seemed to be a few not
so official sites around the paddy fields with smaller rockets going off all the time. There seemed to be an area where the kids could set their “still learning” rockets off as well. At one point, a couple of novice monks were seen carrying their own rocket over to one of the secondary launch areas.
The adult rockets were amazing. These home made explosive devices would shoot up into the air at great speeds and height. The rockets are not like fireworks, they don’t explode with sparks they just shoot into the air leaving a trail of smoke behind them and hundreds of people staring into the sky to see how high they have gone and whether the debris was about to fall on top of their heads.
An MC was in control the whole time and he was clearly very excited by the idea of exploding devices. I don’t think he actually stopped talking, shouting, cheering, commentating the entire day and he was always very disappointed on the rare occasion that a rocket didn’t go off. This was all made ok however, as people whose rocket failed had to roll around in the mud for a while
Rocket launcher
This the launch for the "grown-up" rockets during teh festival...people would climb up and stand there fiddling with the electrical ignition and fuses, sometimes even holding onto part of the rocket when it took off! as a punishment. Toward the end of the day there were a lot of people rolling around mud wrestling, but I suspect the Lao Lao had more to do with that than the failure of their rockets...
The most impressive rocket was probably what has now been dubbed “big bertha”. It was said to weigh over 100 kgs, and instead of bamboo sticks as the support and transporting structure they had a massive steel bar. It went off with an absolutely massive bang. Unfortunately for the poor Aussie team they were the next act up on the launch and just to add to the “size comparison” issue their rocket weighed about 2-3kgs. At least it was well decorated.
Originally they had thought that there was a local “igniting team”. This turned out not to be the case and the three of them had to clamber up the launch structure, set up the rocket, hook up the electrical cable to the battery and the rocket, and perch themselves up there as they set it off! The guys were approached by one of the rival rocket men to place a $50 USD bet before whether they would actually get it
Up up up she goes.....
Here is the mega rocket "Big Bertha" taking off into the sky...this if over 100kg rocket going off.... going the second try. They rejected the offer….After what looked like a bit of fumbling around, the rocket didn’t go off! The team, took the rocket down again to see what was wrong. The guys were approached by one of the rival rocket men to place a $50 USD bet before whether they would actually get it going the second try. They rejected the offer. One of the old men from the village came over, did something to the fuse and after about 30minutes they were up the launch again and this time it took off!
Basically, the day went on, sitting around, drinking beer, soft drink, and constant, oohs and aahs and jumps as random rockets were going off and dancing cross-dressing men around us. Other than that it was a pretty average relaxing Sunday afternoon...don't you think?
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:)
Want to fire some of these off at our wedding? Wouldn't be too dissimilar to our traditional croation shooting of the riffle, better still, why not a rocket? Mayeb we could use some shaving cream with 'just married'? :) Looking forward to seeing you too :) xxxx