I always wanted to be in the Santa Claus Parade

Tuesday this week was the end of Buddhist Lent. Not sure what that means-seems to me to be an oxymoron,but the name is in quite common usage here.

Anyway, the secular part of the festival is easier to understand-it’s called the Fire Festival. Each village (Luang Prabang has many, many villages-centered around a local temple),and some other organizaitons build a boat-float. The frame is bamboo. On top of the frame, you build some sort of thing- replica temples and nagas (dragon-like creatures) are very popular-out of paper-it looks like tissue paper. The colours are fabulous and the constructions are really amazing-lotus flowers are also popular.

The boat-floats are lit with candles and little containers with wicks filled with some substance, All the candles and little laterns are lit.

This year, there were fourteen boat-floats. Each boat-float is accompanied by costumed attendants and other people making music/noise with drums, cymbals and gongs. As darkness falls, the floats are really quite magical.

A parade takes place all the way down the main street. Each float is on some sort of trolley apparatus, which allows it to be pushed/steered down the main street. One of the floats was actually carried, rather than pushed. This team had replacement carriers,and as the parade continued, they became more and more lubricated with Beer Lao.

It is sort of like the Santa Claus parade at night, with candles.

The parade route is long...about 2 km, at least. At the end of the main street is a large temple. All the boats proceed into the temple grounds and line up in their parade order. Then a Buddhist monk recites some prayers (I think it is sort of a blessing of the fleet)
Then, each boat is carried down an incredibly steep and long flight of stairs to the Mekong. Before the stairs are reached, the float is taken from the base and carried down the stairs...this is an amazing sight, with all the candles and laterns, and at least 20 (the larger floats had closer to 40) men carrying these things down to the water. Then, the boats are launched,and the moment of truth arrives....the thing has, just HAS to float. When a launch is successful, loud cheers are heard. Then, the men carrying the next boat start down the stairs.

At the end, there were 14 boats on the river. Individuals take little versions-usually made from a banana leaf with lots of marigolds on it,and a candle in the middle. So, the Mekong was a just a sea of little bobbing lights-there had to be 200 or 300 out on the river.

Big Brother Mouse built a float, and I was very lucky to be asked to go along with them-think they wanted a photographer.

As a kid, I always wanted to be in the Santa Claus parade..not sure why-it is always cold,and the route is long,but as a kid in Montreal, the parade was truly a magical thing,and every year I wished I could be in it. Well, I never was, but now I have been in the Fire Parade in Luang Prabang. Lots of falangs watching the parade, but I was one of only a few actually IN the parade. Lucky me.

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