Pi Mai Laos!!

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Not a bit of an exaggeration when I say that Helen and I have just had the most fun few days ever. Made a timely arrival to Luang Prabang on Wednesday 12th for the Laos New Year (Pi Mai) Celebrations. We think New Year's Day was actually Easter Saturday but its hard to know when the celebrations extend as many days as they do streets and water pumps!

Pi Mai is celebrated with the ceremomial chucking of water over every person that comes within throwing range. Its an extension of the tradition of pouring water on Buddhas to get rid of last year's bad luck. People roam the streets drenched and anyone that isn't fully wet is prime target for hoardes of water-pistol & bucket weilding celebrants - as Helen and I soon found out. For shortly after checking into our our ant infested lodgings we were accosted on the street by the same two dodgy looking English boys we had met in Chiang Mai, this time armed with supersoakers! Thankfully sundown is a widely agreed time to stop with the water, allowing everyone the chance to dry off and shape up for a nights sampling of the country's brews, namely Lao Lao Whiskey and Beer Lao.

We spent 5 days on the streets with a great bunch of people: Finola (Monaghan), Erik & Titia (Holland), Chris & Phil (Newmarket-the dodgy ones), Steph & Steve (English living in Oz), Susannah (England), Damien & Orlaigh (Ireland) and Vinh (Vietnam).

We went to the carnival to see the the ex-King's granddaughter be crowned Miss Luang Prabang and saw her 2 days later perched high above the crowd on huge Water Buffalo as she paraded around the streets, every resident and tourist in the vicinity looking on, dousing buddhist monks with water for good luck. We piled into the throngs of people and followed the parade, the heat made bearable by constant soakings and went home covered with flour, black grease and food colouring. Another day we discovered a party on the opposite bank of the river to Luang Prabang town and were ferried over to be covered in whole bags of flour and water (obviously) and learn the Lao version of the macarena. Using our supersoakers like our lives depended on it and acting like lunatics was such great craic. Evenings were spent in the Hive, the Vietnamese bar and even once in a proper disco. Of many nightly goings-on, there were a few highlights: Out of tune singing without knowing the words of songs, Finola's stand up 'King of the World' moment in the back of a pick up as the rest of us crouched down in the lashing rain, and the love heart game where many a ridiculous story was made up to incorporate the saying on the sweet.

Laos for us was Pi Mai and the fantastic bunch of people we met. We had constant smiles on our faces. We did manage to leave Luang Prabang but only got as far as Viang Viene where, after a day's rest we went tubing (sitting in a huge rubber ring and floating down the river) - I even did a rope swing jump in!- and at night we met everyone again for a happy session around a fire on the Island.

Then finally we had to move on and it was in Vientiene we caught our flight to Hanoi, Vietnam - well, we thought we deserved one flight after all those buses and such a busy week...


P.S. click onto Steph & Steve's webpage to see some great shots of Pi Mai day fun (we were too afraid to bring our camera out!)
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/SASINSEA/
I see they have put up a little hello to anyone that is referred from our page so read that and then head to the section entitled "Water Festival"

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Photos

Dinner with Le Gang
Susannah, Finola, Erik, Titia