S/V Tavarua

Given that Champasak was slow and quiet, we decided to see just how low key we could go. We found out that we really can handle slow and quiet rather nicely.

With a bit of stress over whether we could get a ride out of Champasak or not (it took about three hours before transportation came through), we got out of town in style. A sangthaew (a three wheeler that seats about 8 people on wooden benches) came by with two Swedish girls (the Nordic countries are traveling everywhere) and us headed about three kilometers out of town to the ‘ferry’ dock. The ‘ferry’ consisted of three wooden boats hooked together with planks across them that could carry about seven vehicles slowly across the river. We made it across in style, the ladies were selling sodas and M-150s out of plastic buckets filled with ice which was very popular with the two of us and the locals. The only hitch on the ride over was that our brightly painted sangthaew needed a bit of pushing to get it started again once the ferry docked. Swedish girls that carry backpacks are a force to be reckoned with.

We had good luck on the main Route 13 and the bus to Pakse came by just as we pulled our luggage from the tropical imagery in the vehicle. The bus was on the low end of bus travel comfort. It was only a thirty minute ride, but it was jammed packed with folks. I made peace with the lady sitting next to me who did not really appreciate my oversized white butt sitting on her bench by admiring her pink painted nails with silver stars. It turned out she, like any person I’ve ever met who paints their nails, was quite pleased by the compliment and gave over a few more inches on the bench. Derrell on the other hand had it a bit rougher. He had his feet on the edges of some edge-of-death ducks on the floor and the standard nuclear chain reaction of smoking was occuring bench by bench in front of him. Some travel is good when it is old-fashioned and, well, some a bit unpleasant.

We decided to throw some money at the next phase and hired a tuk-tuk to take us out to Tat Lo. It was a windy ride, then a rainy ride which ended up equating to a reasonably cool and pleasant ride. We had one stop at the petrol station handing over some of our payment to the driver so he could buy gas for the trip. One stop to pick up a friend that needed to deliver a fixed tire. One stop to pour water on the brakes to cool them down using water jugs they were carrying, and one more entertaining stop to pour water on the brakes again using shower water that two teenage girls were currently using in the front of their village. Lots of giggling on that one. Ah, but your mind is wandering, the girls wear sarongs when bathing and swimming in these parts. It sort of is a laundry/bath combo deal… very efficient.

Ah, Tat Lo. We were pleased to see the waterfalls. The area consists of a choice of four guesthouses, one village and one wat complete with a handful of drum happy young monks. Our choice in guest houses ended up being a raised bamboo hut looking out at the falls and river that included such amenities as a hammock, writing table and chairs, mirror, electricity and mosquito netting (unneeded, thankfully), all for the exorbitant price of $2.25 USD.

We were on the edge of the village, but maybe it was more accurate to say we were in the village. We met a half-grown pot-bellied pig that came trotting over to greet us when she could figure out we were around (pig eyesight is amazingly dim). This always ended up in a complete flop on the ground, lots of tail waving and the eyes closing for minute or two. After the greeting, she got back up and joyfully trotted off. I became a vegetarian for the village stay after that in honor of our new friend. Other clues about being in the village was that one of the laundry and bathing stations for folks was in front of our hut. Lots of small vegetable plots were fenced off around us, probably to keep out the pigs, and chickens were in full plumage (some actually looked rather regal in their dark blue and red feathers). Oh, and the homes behind us as well as our restaurant was cooking over charcoal.

We did the tourist thing and headed up to the ‘expensive’ guesthouse (about $25/night) and went for an elephant ride in the morning. The two elephants were born in 1939 and 1944 and must have been domesticated when the French were still around these parts. Since they live to around 100 years and they aren’t logging elephants, they get some work from the handful of us who think it is quaint to go for a jaunt through the woods. It was quaint. We learned from the elephants themselves that young bamboo is a favorite food, shade is much better than walking in the sun and they are suspicious of villagers coming up on the trail on bicycle behind them. The matriarchs seemed fine with their jobs, but munching bamboo would have been preferable.

After two nights, we thought we would head back to Pakse. We did not make it past our breakfast stop for iced coffee and fresh baguettes at the mid-range guesthouse ($15/night). The view of the falls and the heat of the day melted our ambitions. We checked in and then soaked in the rushing water for the day’s main activity. Lots of birds of paradise flowers, papaya trees, plumerias and odd strange looking plants growing on the sides of trees we could not name were in view from the patio. Freaky looking colorful beetles were also around, but the volume of moving entities in view were butterflies. Every shape, size, and color were flying through the air. Land of a million elephants? Maybe. Land of a million butterflies… much more apt.

Even though we were no longer on the edge of the village, we still met another animal friend. Derrell was walking through the guesthouse restaurant and noticed one of the girls was feeding a one month old monkey. He said hello to it when passing. A few moments later the girl left the youngster wrapped around the table leg to go back into the kitchen for something. This was a clearly a monkey nightmare, the youngster flew across the room for Derrell to hold him. And so Derrell had a new friend that was soon thinking about sleeping in his arms for a good portion of what would have been his lunch hour.

Monkey hands are amazing. They have a rubbery texture on their super long fingers, normal sized thumbs and little tiny fingernails. Our friend’s arms were extraordinarily long and could just reach the width of Derrell’s chest. He could not have been more than eight inches tall, but his tail was about twice that length. We did not get the full story given our limited Lao, but something had happened that orphaned him. He was getting good foster care and hopefully he will have a free-spirited adulthood. Either way, I’m sure that they will hear about it from him, he was a talkative soul with a mouthful of rather nice teeth.

Needless to say, we were a bit sad to leave Tat Lo. It was a full nature park experience. Between the park-like feel of the place and the dread of another bus ride, we had a bit of work in the morning to get us moving. The bus dread was misplaced, however. The guesthouse drove us out to the main road and the bus arrived within ten minutes. This time the transporation had plenty of seats, looked like it had been washed in the last millenium and had curtains. It also had the standard worldwide bus attribute of playing earsplittingly loud music. But hey, and it could actually go uphill! So, all told, we made it to Pakse within two hours and had lots of good views of the jungle, coffee plantations, and villages, although no one was showering at this early hour of the day.

Pakse is it for Laos. Not a very interesting town, but the airport works, the rooms are abundant and cheap ($5/night) and a bowl of noodle soup will set you back ($.80). Laos has been one of the more wonderful finds on our trip. We met a few travelers who were more enthralled with Thailand and an equal number that had the same opinion about Laos as us. I suppose it depends on what you are looking for… if it is luxury, food, and leisure, Thailand is the hands down winner… but for a step back in time to a place where farmer markets still exist, villages are centered around wats and why someone would travel is still a complete mystery, Laos it is. What a sweet tempered lovely place.

Complete ambiance reigns here. We took a flight from Vientianne to Pakse in southern Laos. From the small airport, we headed down to the Mekong river and haggled to get on the river boat to Champasak, about an hour and a half down river. The boys were a bit staunch on the pricing at $4 USD each, so I asked the women already on board how much they paid… $.50. Hmm, well, we got the price down to $3 USD each. The area is a bit rigged for tourists, since there are not many of us in the area at the moment and transportation is fairly limited.

It was the right choice of travel, though. The breeze from the moving long boat kept it cool, the views were great and sitting on the bamboo mats leaning back against the edge against a pile of rice sacks was more comfortable than any bus trip could ever be. The lady that had informed us of the actual price of the boat came over and leaned against me while we had a point at the Laos word in the back of the Lonely Planet guidebook discussion that included topics such as where we were from, if we were married, whether we had kids or not, and how different our skin looked. A tan isn’t considered beautiful here, but my skin was a bit on the extreme pale side. Once she determined that I did not feel different in texture, she went back to her travel day of chatting with her friends, eating noodle soup, chewing beetlenut and eventually taking a nap. It was a full day for all of us.

Champasak was a great place, and extremely quiet. The guest house was on the river and the restaurant had a fantastic view of the fishermen. On this day, village life was progressing at the speed it always has progressed in this area.

The town was so quiet that we became concerned that we were not going to get a ride out to the Wat Phu ruins that we had come to see. We had the luck of morning with us the next day when a sangthaew filled with three Swedish guys stopped for us because they were halted by a mini-procession in the street consisting of a few gongs, yellow flowers, chanting and a girl seated high in a carriage on the back of a truck.

A French fellow that we had met the day before had ridden out on bicycle (a fine specimen of bicycle with a pretty white basket on the front) and we arrived at the gates with the Swedish crew at the same time as him. The difference between us was that he was soaked from top to toe. It was bloody hot out.

The ruins’ carvings were not much to swoon over, at least for a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but the placement of the ruins were stunning. They reached up the mountain with stairways lined with plumeria trees. Pilgrims still come out here (pilgrims in view being very normal western dressed Lao people) and offer incense and flowers to the Buddhas and lingams in the grass. The place is hard to describe because the sounds of the birds in the jungle, the hot weather mixed with a cool breeze on your face, the smell of plumeria and ripe mangos in the air and the sincerity of the people visiting the place, sort of put it over the top as a good place to preserve.

Our afternoon consisted of a busy day sitting on the restaurant porch with the exhausted French guy gazing out at a huge thunderstorm that blew up a good deal of waves on the river and made us reconsider the liklihood of being hit by lightning. We also learned that children of a certain age can be taught the ‘roll out the dough’ hand motions and then can be taught to combine that with a ‘hello’ wave which can eventually get you to a full salsa movement. Quite stylin’, MTV might be next.

We are slowing down to the pace of life in this country. Strolling the streets in the morning, hanging out at a cafe for the heat of the day and strolling a bit more in the evening. Vientianne might be the capital of Laos, but you’d be hard pressed to guess that when standing on the streets. At only 133,000 people in the city, the place is quiet.

Our big event here was adding pages to our passport at the U.S. Embassy a few blocks away. This took about 40 minutes in a brand new, sterile yet pleasant building sitting (in neat rows of chairs) with many locals patiently waiting to get U.S. passports. We picked up a book that was sitting by one of the bullet-proof/bomb-proof window stalls that offered us an overview of the 50 states. It was a hand-colored rundown of the population, flags and state mascots. It was rather a dull book, but we were pleased to note that the Maine Coon Cat is officially the state cat of Maine. Every state should have a state feline.

Our strolls took us by the victory monument (built with concrete from the U.S. intended for a runway during the war years), the Wat of the Heavy Buddha (he was huge), the Lao Aviation office for more risky flight coupons, the park pavillion where aerobics were in full swing to Lao pop music and past many ex-pat ‘French’ restaurants. The Lao coffee is superb, the baguettes as good as Paris, the pho takes honors and the Italian pizza is, well, almost adequate. Okay, so the food isn’t perfect here… but the ex-pats don’t have it too bad.

Our morning coffee stop consisted of listening to two embassy officials comparing where they had been stationed in the past. The lists included such gems as the Congo, Ghana, Taiwan, and one of them was hoping he’d eventually make it to the Bangkok embassy. What an odd life they must live, switching countries and languages so dramatically.

Yesterday we flew up to Phonsavan on Laos Airways. Nothing like rolling the dice to see if you will arrive at the other end.

We had a great ride to the airport on a ‘motorcycle with a sidecar’ rickshaw. He took us over the pedestrian & rickshaw only wooden bridge. With having the driver to the side instead of blocking our view in front of us, we could look down between the slats of the bridge and see the water far below. Excellent, dude!

Our flight experience started with wandering past a defunct security scanner, getting our baggaged scanned and passed back out to us through a different window, sauntering up to the ticket counter and getting checked in and our bags piled onto the back of a truck, watching a girl try to get some scotch tape out of her hair that one of the truck loaders ambushed her with, heading back out past the defunct security scanner, showing our boarding card to a guard to be let into the immigration room, paying for a domestic departure tax paper to be stapled to our boarding card, heading through a real security scanner (and noting that the security check guys were opening two 660ml Beer Lao’s and had two empties sitting next to them… the New Year’s slow on ending?), hearing a name being called over the loud speakers (M’st’r Piwah), ignoring the loudspeaker, hearing the name again about ten minutes later, arguing between ourselves as to whether that could be Derrell, wandering back out to the ticket counter, getting no information, stopping to check the immigration desk, finding success, handing over our passports for a ‘domestic departure’ stamp, and passing the security guys again (this time on their third round). Basically.

Our flight experience continued with the plane actually being on time and… overbooked by one person. We wondered how they would handle this. The last person on the plane ended up being a tourist, so… she was asked if she minded sitting in the cockpit with the pilots. She thought this was a grand idea, so off she went, and off we went.

Oh, but they actually handed out bottled water during the flight and did the flight announcements in Lao and English. And the stewardess looked like one, and the pilot had the white shirt, black slacks, funky Vietnamesque pilot glasses and the navy dress style hat that many a pilot likes to wear. So the flight sort of took on some resemblance of a real one.

The views of Luang Prabang were great. Many of the buildings have red roofs with whitewashed building sides. Add to this the lush green palm trees, the blue skies and the infinite meandering of the muddy brown Mekong river… and you have a National Geographic view that is worthy of this World Heritage town. At least while you were not worrying about whether the plane was actually gaining altitude quickly enough, that is.

The final experience of our short flight met with a large gasp from the Chinese fellow next to me. The pilot decided to go for a plunge through the clouds and successfully make this one of the fastest and steepest landings I’ve had the displeasure of participating in. The not-yet-threatening thunderhead clouds around us added a few lurching drops of air pressure. This had an effect, as we had a lovely view of one of the passengers using the air sickness bags after he climbed off the plane. Woo-hoo! Ground never looked so good.

While waiting for our luggage, we watched a Army green Lao PDB helicopter land a few feet behind the plane and that ended up being the only activity at the airport. Scanning the horizon, we noted there was a portable truck-mounted Viet Cong radar facility rusting a few hundred yards away that someone had placed up on a small bump on the airport grounds. And we eventually calmed down enough to notice that it was very quiet. Roosters, of course, do not heed nature’s call for quiet, but other than them, the only sound was the wind blowing. It made it feel tropically serene and pleasant standing in the sun looking at rusted war equipment. And that becomes a disconcerting feeling very quickly.

The town was full of aggressive touts at the airport, new construction of hotels on the main street, rather dusty from bricks and gravel going into the new construction, and still had lots of cheerful people greeting us with ‘Sabadee’ and smiles.

We found a room for $5 that had hot water and screens in the windows. The prices must be lowering from all the new construction? They had the requisite pile of empty cluster bomb casings in one of the side doorways. One of which had written on it ‘Bomb from USA’, as if that wasn’t obvious enough. Oh heck, maybe it isn’t obvious for some of us under fifty, especially for those of us educated in America with the appalling ‘let’s stop at WWII’ history curiculum.

We made a wrong decision that evening and took up a tout’s offer of taking us over to the Hmong market in the morning. We were clear that we were interested in musical instruments, a Hmong mouth harp called a ‘ncas’ (pronounced - ‘jah’) to be precise. He assured us that the market we wanted might have them. And he said that 4:30 AM was the right time to leave to get there. We saw a few flaws in this plan at the time, but ignored our internal scam alert signals going off.

At 4:10 AM, after a sleepless night through one hell of a major THUNDER-storm, we hear a knock on our door. “Hello, it is 4:30 AM, you up?” We shoo the guy away and get dressed. Driving the 30 km to the market in a beat up Soviet-era Volvo-like thing, we notice that even though it is pitch black.. the roads are good. @#!

At 4:45 AM, in the dark, in the last bits of rain, we step out into an empty market (lots of wooden platform under tin roof shelters, one huge state fair-quality shelter with a good hundred wooden tables scattered, and three women with baskets of cilantro and opium also waiting). And we wait. And shiver slightly. Yawn. And wait. The sky started to show the early morning bits of light around 5:45 AM. And people start to trickle in.

The market was great, if you were looking for a huge traditional farmer’s market. It was very scenic. Yellow mushroom season is here, so lots of fungus was displayed on bamboo mats. Herbs by the baskets. Fresh bacon parts being hacked. Ducks in handmade bamboo cartons (cage would mean it could move). Baby pigs also in cartons but with a better fate, they would age a few years before returning to the market as meat. Noodle stands, chinese steamed buns, and pre-made salads were sprinkled about. All of this arriving by Hmong women with woven baskets as backpacks, on wooden carts being rolled through the mud, or in style by jumbo (the local 9-seater public transport). The market was literally a ‘farmer’s’ market. The Hmong were arriving for their once-a-week journey in from the countryside to sell produce, buy produce and any extra household items needed. It was very festive.

By 6:30 AM, we had had enough. There was not a chance that a musical instrument would be here. This was a basic necessities of life market and centered mostly around food. We grumpily got our con-artist guide to take us back to town. The market was just starting. We could have gotten up at 6 AM instead of the friggin’ middle of the night. Our driver was the only one pleased with the entire experience. While our guide annoyingly trailed us sprinkling un-related converstation at us, he was off shopping. He had a huge bag of basil, shallots and some sort of root that I had never seen before. Bah.

On the positive side, the market was picturesque. The shoppers were chatty and smiling. Bargaining was easy-going. Everyone looked very happy (except the ducks and frogs). The countryside was shrouded in mist with ominous clouds looming over it as the world turned from the nightime grays to saturated green hills with streaks of red clay. And it smelled of clean morning air. No wonder we still have these weekly farmer’s markets at home. They are good thing for morning people.

But, you’ll have to excuse us… we need to strangle our ‘guide’ now.

Wow. The past few days have been very wet. On no path in town are you safe from buckets of water being dumped over you, even when passing by monks.

We spent the hot afternoon watching the sand castle stupas being built by families toting picnic supplies, candles, white paper zodiac flags, flowers and incense. They turned the far side of the river into a sea of white flags and returned by boats looking happy, exhausted and white from the talcum powder the youngsters were tossing on them… and soaking wet.

Our perch was at one of the riverside cafes (pink plastic chairs and tables between the road and Mekong) and we were soon amused to realize that this tree lined location, sitting at a rickety table with a tablecloth over it, did not shield us from getting buckets of water dumped over our heads or a super-soaker aimed at us by an errant child hardly as big as the water gun he or she was carrying.

Our view away from the river was towards the guest houses across the street was at the opposite end of the ‘traditional’ scale. Complete mayhem was breaking out. The most outrageous had the street, sidewalks and tables taken over by a group of young Thai girly-boys with an overflow of affectations. The sound systems from no less than three guest houses were competing and playing everything from Laos pop to techno to traditional Thai folkmusic. And mind you, the boys had good stage presence when they got up on the tables to carry out some traditional dancing; the flowers in their hair were a nice touch, as well.

The road was hard traveling for anyone on a scooter, motorbike, feet, back of a truck or in a vehicle with unlocked doors. Everyone was out on the street stopping everyone else and dousing and hosing down the folks trying to pass. The amazing thing we noticed was that this was still done with some regard to age. The grandmothers, older tourists, some older men and most (but not all) mothers were able to pass through the streets with nary a drop on them.

We eventually found some energy to leave our table and head down the street. We did not get very far before a bunch of twenty year old local girls were handing us glasses of beer and plastic pails to join them. We spent the next three hours learning the fine art of waterfighting and drinking way too much BeerLao. We added about three or four cases of beer to the party and that was a small dent in the quantity consumed by the crowd. The owners of the guest house kept coming around and hugging and dancing with everyone and then dousing everyone with ice water (they had access to an ice chest in the kitchen).

It was a good day. We thought as the sun was setting we would be safe walking back to our guesthouse since people were settling down on the wet benches and just resorting to chatting and drinking, but we were wrong. As we neared the monastery, the monks were still out in force and we were once again soaked… ah, no, that must be… blessed.

Day 2:
Our day started by heading out onto the quiet streets and saw processions of families in beautiful clean clothes with silver and gold bowls of sticky rice heading up to the top of the Phousi hill to give an offering of rice at the wat. We joined many of them after the hill climb and checked out the Luang Prabang Museum. The morning was a serene contrast to the boisterous festivities of the day before.

In late morning we settled into a cafe and got in a mini-water fight with the little boys that were rigging up the water hose, buckets and borrowing supersoakers from the tourists. I wished them Buon Mi Pai instead of Buon Pi Mai and that sent them into a long term fit of giggles. I was a good target for extra water after that, by mom, dad and the short crowd.

At 1:30 or 2 or 2:30, who knows, it is Laos time under the palm trees here, the procession started. All the girls in town must have been participating in the parade, everyone was dressed in sparkling traditional dresses, had their hair in a formal wrap with flower and were carrying the traditional banana leaf and flower mini-stupas for altar decorations. The three traditional figures in full body hairy costumes, (grandmother, father and lion), proceeded along with drum accompianment. Monks in orange robes under black (modern) umbrellas then followed. Flowered water was splashed on the monks by women and men as they passed. A few special monks were borne along on the backs of trucks, one set of monks were on a music truck with gongs and a huge drum, and the other set were surrounding a top monk seated in a gold throne. (They were splashed with scented water, as well, regardless of instruments or thrones surrounding them.) And then the colorful highlight was Miss New Year reclining on the back of a leaping boar while she carried a trident and bow, on a bright float. Then followed in t-shirt and jeans with faces smeared with soot (probably from an early water fight in the day?), a large group of young guys pounding, dancing and being very enthusiastic about making noise on hand drums and with empty water bottles. A few smaller traditional groups were interspersed in the procession, in fine dress or playing traditional bamboo instruments, and the finale was the fire truck following behind. The end? Nope. Every mobile person in town was then joining the procession and headed down the street.

We followed along to the sounds of drums banging, people chanting, people laughing and cameras clicking. We almost became dry.

At the Wat at the far end of the procession, Miss New Year and her court were ushered into sim and had a picture session in front of the red glow of the buddha altar. Water was sluiced on the buddhas, candles were offered, incense was lit. It was absolutely beautiful.

We headed back out into the bright sun and watched as the dressed up little girls had pictures taken in front of the magical temple buildings. Found a M-150 (Red Bull equivalent) to drink under the shade of the banyan trees, and noted that many locals were drinking small boxes of soy milk.

The return to the main street after the procession revealed that all the water buckets placed to bless the monks were now turned on each other. The afternoon became another huge water fight. Roving pickup trucks filled with plastic garbage cans of water were a favorite of the teenagers. It is hard to explain just how drenched everyone was. Maybe explaining that using the loo consisted in someone hollering “It isn’t a toilet, it’s a shower!!” everytime you used it and then dumping a few buckets of water over you.. might explain the flood of water that was in the restaurant, as much as the flood of water on the street. Lots of BeerLao and huge speakers brought out onto the streets fueled this afternoon.

Our night ended with us having another serene moment as we tottered off for dinner. We walked by the temple near our guesthouse and noted that the monks were chanting. With possibly a bit of BeerLao reducing our inhibitions, we joined them when they motioned for us. The orange robes with the red lights surrounding the Buddha statues was mesmerizing. Hey, and dinner ended up being good, too.

Day 3:
Up at 9 AM and we headed over to the Wat Mai. The Pha Bhang (a gold Buddha statue about 18″ in size, reputed to be the protection of Laos) was being sluiced with water from 12 foot long dragon pipes. Traditional folk music, people dressed formally, donations for preservation, candles, flowers and incense, all rounded out the morning.

That was the event of the day.

Our morning was finished up with good coffee and a great omelet baguette. And this was accompianed by a three year old who decided that I had a reasonably good lap.

We pondered the afternoon, the bodhi trees, the dharma wheels, silver colored glass elephants, while hanging out by the river front in the afternoon. Kids were playing on a (uh-oh) recently sunk ferry boat in the river.

Our guest house had a private formal Baasli ceremony and feast in the early evening. During the day, the grandmothers had built the traditional banana leaf and flower mini-stupas with incense and strands of string to be later tied around guests wrists. The mothers and daughters had been cooking all day. In the evening the monks joined the party and blessings, chantings and symbolic string bracelets were tied on everyones wrists. It was one of those events where you tip-toed to and from your guest room, hoping not to disturb the ceremonies.

To finalize our last night, a huge thunderstorm rolled through town. The evening crafts market had just been deployed. About 100 sellers rushed to recollect and bag up their silks, quilts and crafts before the big drops turned into a downpour. They were quick and the storm was slow, so everyone was out of the street by the time the lightening was flashing and the rain arrived. A few short power outages and a reduction in the night temperature to a reasonable level and the storm moved on.

And that was the Water Festival in Luang Prabang. Complete with a final soaking from the gods. Miss New Years must have been a good choice.

Our morning started by waking up to pounding on the traditional large drums outside of the nearby wat… at 5:45 AM. We clambered out of bed, slipped into yesterday’s clothes and headed outside. The daily monk procession (to fill their bowls with the day’s sticky rice and collect other alms) was just starting. Since it is a festival day, many families and many groups of women had set out their mats and kneeled with feet pointing away from the monks. Flowers, copper pots and inch size handfuls of rice were dropped into the monk’s bowls. Even with the tourists zipping around trying to get a good photo, including the Japanese girls posing in front of line, the procession was picturesque. The monks were wearing the bright orange robes, barefoot with shaved heads, and consisted of two age groups, very old and under 20. The tradition is for every young man to join the monastary for three months. It is a big contrast to the western clothes, dating and scooter riding that seems to be a main occupation for the non-orange draped months of being a teenager here.

We made a loop and found that many of the nearby restaurants and shops were not opening for the morning. Then with a bit more observation, we noted that most people were headed down the street. We grabbed a good cup of coffee and a fantastic omelette baguette, then headed down the street. Considering that we were probably headed towards shopping that was geared towards the festival and not really geared towards us, we picked out two cheerful women who were dressed up and decided to see what caught their interest at the stalls. That was actually easier to decide than actually carry out. The street was overflowing with craft, clothes, balloon, noodle, music, plastic toy, fruit, dried fish, beer, ice cream, spring roll, and bucket stands. The women went shopping for children’s outfits, sunhats, helium balloons and zodiac signs. They also inspected the birds for sale in tiny pink plastic cages.

The zodiac signs were for sale everywhere and were all printed the same on basic white paper pinned to a string attached to a bamboo pole, but the similarity ended there. They were hand-colored with magic markers by kids, so your color schemes, outlining and staying within the lines varied from abstract to identifiable creatures. The paper flags are used later in the day when everyone heads across the river and builds a sand stupa, with each grain of sand representing a sin from the past year. When the sand castle is completed, the flag is placed at the top, and the Buddha calendar year is written in the sand. When the river rises to wash your stupa away, your sins are cleared away.

The birds in the pink plastic cages are also part of the festival, and the current tradition involves purchasing the trapped creatures and setting them free which gains you good karma. The younger kids were quite enthralled with this. They had a good selection of small creatures to choose from: eels, fish, rodents and birds. We sort of figured the karma might be a bit better, if there wasn’t commerce involved with the ceremony. Hopefully, the unpaid for critters will be released, as well. We figure this evening will have quite a few confused birds flying about wondering where they are.

We lost the two women after the second children’s clothing stop, but I’ve got admit the hilltribe beanie hats for toddlers are beyond cute. With a tassle or two on the round hat, a few bells and lots of bright colors, you can’t help but smile at a kid wearing one.

The fair actually turned into a fair at the distant end of the street. It took us about an hour to walk, stroll, meander through the heavy crowds to reach the other end. At that end, we found a good set of carnival rides. A ferris wheel, a huge air filled jumping castle, lots of spinning in circle things. We didn’t think the kids could be happier than getting ice cream at 9 AM, balloons, zodiac flags and a temporary pet… but I think the rides put them over the top.

So with the afternoon spent across the river (folks have set up plastic awnings, piles of chairs and full size tables), we expect the kids to be comatose by evening. Just thinking of the sand castles to be built, feasting to be accomplished, temporary pets to be freed, water fights to be strategized, and dancing and singing to be completed… can get you tired without even finishing the day.

Must be time for another noodle bowl…

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.