Ruairí and Alfred: PARTY TIME!!

DRAGON BOAT RACES AND THE END OF BUDDHIST LENT

It's not that Lao people need much of an excuse to party but this week it was official: Lent was over and it was the signal for - in theory - two days and one night of party time. This would have been Wednesday and Thursday of this week but, in fact, like happens for Christmas chez nous, it all got going quite a bit beforehand with stalls and music and noise and whatever.

The main attraction is the dragon boat races, which are incredibly long and narrow boats with crews of 50-60. There are also sprint races between smaller boats with crews of 12. A few years ago they introduced the novel idea of having women's teams as well!! And there is one team which is composed of about an equal mixture of Lao and falang (foreigner) women (red with yellow hats in the photos). The first races were on Wednesday and the finals on Thursday. We went down around 12 on Wednesday and found a table in a restaurant right on the startline for the sprints and what turned out to be the halfway line for the longer races.

Women's team!

It was great fun, the rowing was impressive and everyone seemed to be taking it reasonably seriously without getting too worked up about it all. After the races we wandered around the various stalls and displays (having been joined by our Irish friend Michael Headen by now). It was mostly pure tat (or honky tonk as Michael describes it): stalls selling the usual clothes and souvenirs, some just selling washing powder, nappies or energy drinks; promotional stands (Dao coffee, Samsung, Nissan (Alfred: Michael made the mistake of actually asking the girl on the Nissan stand about one of the cars! It soon became clear that her role and purpose on the day did not have anything to do with answering technical question - or even questions - or even answering!), ETL, computer manufacturers and so on. And food, lots and lots of food (Alfred: And when Ruairí went back the next day, it looked like it was exactly the same food, though the lettuce was somewhat more wilted in the sandwiches).

And it did look like the whole town was there! On the way in (and on the way home) we passed thousands upon thousands of motorbikes parked in serried ranks, tuk-tuks everywhere and (in scenes reminiscent of the area around Croke Park in the old days when there was a big match),

self-appointed parking attendants charging a small fee for guiding your car up onto the pavement where you could abandon it. Even the temples were making a few quid by charging 5000 kip (50 cent) for parking your car. And there was very, very loud music, and then fireworks. There were giant blazing model ships which were set adrift once it got dark.

And, most importantly, there were people's individual floating offerings. Everyone, whether individual or family, had a carefully-crafted flower arrangement made of banana leaves and flowers and a candle on top which they lit and set adrift in the Mekong. Most Lao people put some money on as an offering (Alfred: Much appreciated by the small boys who swim out into the Mekong further downstream and rescue the money from a watery grave). I don't know if having your candle go out is a bad sign - I hope not as most of them did!! And, as we set off home, people were lighting giant lanterns and letting them float away into the heavens - beautiful!

Offerings floating on the Mekong

Thursday we headed in again but Martine got a puncture and decided to walk back to the house. I continued on as we needed to find an ATM anyway (Alfred: Yeah, right) but I didn't stay long, it was even noisier and the sun had done a good job of baking the litter and debris from the previous night. And I couldn't help noticing that the food stands did seem to have exactly the same food as the previous day - some of the meatballs looked capable of independent locomotion. But everyone was happy and smiling, there was a wonderful selection of umbrellas, and a great feeling of cheerfulness and camaraderie. Even the presence of armed police (an unusual sight here) didn't detract from the fun.