This is the cat’s pajamas. Luang Prabang is a sleepy-yet-touristy town of 16,000 people with nice people, good food, fine weather, a water festival that starts two days from now and a few pet cats that are having a good life. It is also the ‘best preserved town in Indochina’ and a UNESCO world heritage site. Hmm, what more could a traveler ask for?
We’ve sat along the brown rolling Mekong river peeking out of tropical vegetation that reminds us of Hawaii. The mango season is just thinking about starting, the bananas are in season as always, the oranges are green skinned and juicy, the bugs are noisy, the kids are splashing in the river without supervision off of a long boat, bamboo is being cut and floated over to the bank to be measured and pounded into the hillside, the fine white fishing nets are being cleaned and redeployed by adults with slightly sulky teenagers helping out, and two-person sawing of wooden planks is occuring. Add the new backdrop of sparkling new scooters, well dressed townsfolk and cobblestone roads lined with construction workers refurbishing the historic French Colonial/Lao wood and stucco buildings and you have one of the most thriving tourist towns on the planet. The majority of it is still Lao influenced. No McDonalds, no thought of McDonalds. Heaven!
And there’s no western music either, since that’s officially forbidden by the Democratic People’s Republic of Laos — yes, we’re in one of the five remaining communist countries on the planet (along with China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba).
Not that you’d really know it here. The locals read the Bangkok Post in the mornings, they watch CNN on satellite TV, most everyone speaks enough english to get by, and while western music might be forbidden, that apparently does not apply to gigantic posters of Brittany Spears, sponsored by Pepsi. The tasty baguettes and fine red wine just a hint at their colonial (french) past… Mind you, Brittany has nothing on the Beer Lao girl…
Young kids and teenagers are spaced out on the streets with buckets of water and maniacal grins. The suspecting (definitely not ‘un’suspecting) kids on scooters cruising the streets are getting pelted with pans of water. For the most part, the adults are safe from the waterfountain brigades. Although we have observed that tuk-tuk drivers, tourists and anyone in a closed vehicle are in a special category and therefore bombarded with water. We were absolutely soaking before noon. The tourist retaliation has some ingenuity. A group of six young guys came prepared with super-soakers and hired a tuk-tuck to drive them around for the entire afternoon. Everyone was happy; the kids on the street had a target, the guys got good drive by retaliation and the tuk-tuk was thoroughly cleaned by the end of the afternoon. And the festival has not even started yet.
The water splashing is part of the Boun Pi Mai festival which celebrates the lunar new year. Given that it is also the hottest part of the year and it heralds the start of the rainy season, water dousing is a good thing. The custom also involves having your house cleaned (so the town is spotless), a new wardrobe rolled out (everyone looks spiffier and cleaner than us), the Buddhas cleaned, forgiveness of your neighbor and dousing others with water.
The dousing water ritual evolves from the historic rules and rites for Kings in the Khong Sip Si text. Specifically, rules number 4 and 5:
Fourth, on the New Year’s Day (the fifth lunar month), invite monks to chant and bless the people by sprinkling lustral water on them. The people, in turn, pour perfumed water on the monks as a sign of thanks.
Fifth, on the New Year’s Day, the king’s assistants and ministers must present tributes to the king and humbly pour lustral water on the king.
We actually saw one adult lady walking down the street with a bucket of perfumed water (water with flower petals floating in it), so not all tradition has been usurped by the youngsters. Regardless of age group, it certainly is not a somber holiday.
Derrell is convinced he could move here, if it weren’t for the red menace. There are french baguette sandwiches, spicy larb salads, sticky rice, non-standard meat items to sample (duck, turkey, fermented pork, lao sausages) and lots of (very) bitter vegetables. We finished off some garlic bread during our meander back from the river and we can assure everyone that the vampire bat population in the town is now in remission… and we are happy travelers.
