Laos - Chronicle 1: New Year Celebrations

Any seasoned traveller would question my routing: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, China, wouldn't it make more sense to do Laos first then Vietnam, especially since I had a flight from Vietnam to China so back to Vietnam after Laos!! (perhaps you need a map to follow me!) I had my reasons:
Laos New Year Celebrations an opportunity to see local tradition and culture!












I had been warned that Luang Prabang was where it happened with locals and tourists travelling to the UNESCO World Heritage Site to join in the celebrations and it was going to be busy. The New year holiday was from 13-17 April and was a time when Laos people visited temples, paid their respects to buddhas and blessings for prosperous new year and it felt like a week long party of music, drinking and spraying water. Not even 5 min after leaving my guest house and I was soaked - I had been warned and despite my pleading, 2 young boys threw buckets of water on me - oh well it was hot and I would dry and I continued to set off for a stroll along the Mekong River. The road and riverside was lined with restaurants, bars, guesthouses, shops as well as taxi/tuk-tuk and ferry points. At the end was the main temple and then the Nam Ou river, and a quieter side of town. Running parallel to both rivers was the main drag where there are more guesthouses, hotels, restaurants, bars, travel agents, temples, shops, massage parlours, National Museum and also where the Night Market is set up everynight selling a multitude of souveniers.

















I had decided to set myself up in Luang Prabang for a few days (as opposed to the continual moving to new places every other day) and use it as a base to explore Northern Laos. The first few days were spent visiting local sites - magnificent waterfalls, bear sanctuary, traditional villages (weaving, whisky Lao Lao) and buddha caves, and a cruise up the mighty Mekong River.



















And of course enjoying the New Year celebrations, we couldn't really escape them as Laos people were on holiday and visiting waterfall and caves too!
The highlight for me was the long and festive procession of buddhist monks, beauty pageant entrants, masked dancers, local villages dressed up in their traditional clothes and playing traditional instruments. It started at the Stadium on one side of town and ended at the main temple passing along the main road, where we were enjoying a long lunch and watching festivities including each shop/restaurant/bar setting up water throwing stations (buckets, hosepipes, water pistols) drenching pedestrians, procession participants or neighbouring shops with water (and talcum powder and black shoe polish), amidst loud thumping music, shrieks of laughter and plenty of beer!!
The celebrations continued for the week culminating in a ceremony which entailed the carrying of golden buddha to a central temple where for 3 days locals worshippers would visit, paying respect with water, flowers, prayers. There certainly was a holiday feeling in Luang Prabang and it was interesting to see some of the traditional ceremonies and culture. One does fear that some of the traditions are being lost with excessive beer drinking, pop music and some debauchery in which the tourists joined. But there was still sufficient evidence that local traditions were still being maintained and all Laos people, ethnic minorities and Lao people of every age participated in the different ceremonies.