Luang Prabang in the land of a million Beer Laos bottles
Luang Prabang, the sacred centre of Laotian Buddhism, tucked away in the mountains, was so refreshingly quiet and peaceful after Vietnam that we instantly fell in love with the place and have so far failed to leave. (Again.)
This has been helped by the presence of a cafe which could be straight out of Newtown, with the foamiest cappucinos and tastiest bacon and egg bagels, not to mention the little riverside restaurants overhung by huge trees that are covered in orchids. Oh, and Harry Potter. I read books 6 and 7 in four days...
But yesterday...
We were going to head north a few days ago, until we learned that the festival marking the end of Buddist Lent was this weekend.* So, yesterday, after waking up at 5:30 to watch the monks collecting alms from festively dressed Lao people on the streets of the city, we jumped onto the back of a truck with 7 other tourists and headed off to a small town outside Luang Prabang where the big dragon boat racing was being held. Thousands of people, screaming incomprehensibly on the riverbank to the thump and crash of drums and cymbals, while pairs of boats manned by 30 drenched men hurtled toward the finish line. It seemed like the entire population of Luang Prabang turned up - certainly the traffic was extraordinary - and it was wonderful to be immersed in a real Laos festival.
In the town, surrounded by food stalls and markets, was a field full of tables and chairs (read: school desks and anything that could be sat on), shaded with tarpaulins and ex-army parachutes, in front of a band with a big stage for dancing. Alec and I were beckoned over to join a table of four young men - okay, they were boys, acting like mini American gangsters with bandanas and necklaces and a whole swag of attitude, certainly underage for the half dozen bottles of Beer Laos they were tackling - who tried some English on us before working up the courage to ask me to dance.
Nervous of the nearly empty dance stage and unwilling to embarrass the young image-concious man, I eventually agreed and tried to mimic the slight steps and hand movements of Lao dancing that the other girls were doing. Well, my partner seemed to think I'd done alright, so when someone from another table asked me, i didn't hesitate. Alec, too, joined us and danced with a Lao girl with perhaps less of an attempt to mimic the others, prompting a group of them to actually stop and ask me in amusement if he had ever danced Lao before. (I am pleased to report that Alec did much, much better on the second attempt!)
The place packed out as the boat races finished. We shared beer and spring rolls with a group of revellers with barely a common word between us. I snatched cupfuls of beer between being dragged of to dance. The empty beer bottles under the tables were innumerable. We finally met up with the group we had come with, who had convinced our driver to join us and stay for an extra hour, while a hundred Lao people on the stage danced a quiet kind of Nut Push to a Lao translation of "I Just Called To Say I Love You".
When it came time to go, the motor bikes trying to squeeze past the traffice jam of trucks and utes on the road quickly split up the group as we walked for ten minutes to get to where our driver had finally managed to find a parking spot. The others were lost to sight when I and a Kiwi girl heard music among the trees on the side of the road.
A large family group had simply set up a speaker and a CD player and were having a post-race party of their very own and, bit by bit, our group all joined in. They grabbed us to dance with them, smiled and cheered, offered us beer from huge jugs and refused to take no for an answer. Brilliant.
We danced in the dirt to Laos pop music and American hiphop. A chain of children wove around in a conga line singing their own song. A dancing girl with a jug of beer in one hand and a glass in the other seemed determined to get us as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. And a laughing woman with a bunch of leaves tied to a stick kept poking people in the genitals. I'm not sure what that was all about.
Brilliant.
Eventually our driver found us and finally, reluctantly we left to drive home, cheering at every passing car and anyone we saw, dancing with the people in the truck behind us, and resolving to tip our wonderful driver who had put up with us so admirably.
It was the best day ever, Laos at it's absolute best. We were definitely feeling the love.
* For the duration of the rainy season, the monks stay in the one monestry - they are not confined and still wonder around their town, but they cannot travel - and they mark their 'release' by building great colourful boats and birds and dragons out of bamboo and paper, adorning them with candles, and floating them down the river.** Everyone else takes a public holiday and parties the day, and night, away. A happy drunken rabble passed our guesthouse, letting off fireworks and singing, at 2am.
** This should have been last night but, being Luang Prabang, they delay this spectacle until tonight - Saturday - when the crowd from Vientiane can join in.
We'll be heading north soon to a place called Luang Namtha where there is some wondeful trekking to be had, thence to China. So next time i write, we'll probably be facing the challenges of a chinese keyboard.
This has been helped by the presence of a cafe which could be straight out of Newtown, with the foamiest cappucinos and tastiest bacon and egg bagels, not to mention the little riverside restaurants overhung by huge trees that are covered in orchids. Oh, and Harry Potter. I read books 6 and 7 in four days...
But yesterday...
We were going to head north a few days ago, until we learned that the festival marking the end of Buddist Lent was this weekend.* So, yesterday, after waking up at 5:30 to watch the monks collecting alms from festively dressed Lao people on the streets of the city, we jumped onto the back of a truck with 7 other tourists and headed off to a small town outside Luang Prabang where the big dragon boat racing was being held. Thousands of people, screaming incomprehensibly on the riverbank to the thump and crash of drums and cymbals, while pairs of boats manned by 30 drenched men hurtled toward the finish line. It seemed like the entire population of Luang Prabang turned up - certainly the traffic was extraordinary - and it was wonderful to be immersed in a real Laos festival.
In the town, surrounded by food stalls and markets, was a field full of tables and chairs (read: school desks and anything that could be sat on), shaded with tarpaulins and ex-army parachutes, in front of a band with a big stage for dancing. Alec and I were beckoned over to join a table of four young men - okay, they were boys, acting like mini American gangsters with bandanas and necklaces and a whole swag of attitude, certainly underage for the half dozen bottles of Beer Laos they were tackling - who tried some English on us before working up the courage to ask me to dance.
Nervous of the nearly empty dance stage and unwilling to embarrass the young image-concious man, I eventually agreed and tried to mimic the slight steps and hand movements of Lao dancing that the other girls were doing. Well, my partner seemed to think I'd done alright, so when someone from another table asked me, i didn't hesitate. Alec, too, joined us and danced with a Lao girl with perhaps less of an attempt to mimic the others, prompting a group of them to actually stop and ask me in amusement if he had ever danced Lao before. (I am pleased to report that Alec did much, much better on the second attempt!)
The place packed out as the boat races finished. We shared beer and spring rolls with a group of revellers with barely a common word between us. I snatched cupfuls of beer between being dragged of to dance. The empty beer bottles under the tables were innumerable. We finally met up with the group we had come with, who had convinced our driver to join us and stay for an extra hour, while a hundred Lao people on the stage danced a quiet kind of Nut Push to a Lao translation of "I Just Called To Say I Love You".
When it came time to go, the motor bikes trying to squeeze past the traffice jam of trucks and utes on the road quickly split up the group as we walked for ten minutes to get to where our driver had finally managed to find a parking spot. The others were lost to sight when I and a Kiwi girl heard music among the trees on the side of the road.
A large family group had simply set up a speaker and a CD player and were having a post-race party of their very own and, bit by bit, our group all joined in. They grabbed us to dance with them, smiled and cheered, offered us beer from huge jugs and refused to take no for an answer. Brilliant.
We danced in the dirt to Laos pop music and American hiphop. A chain of children wove around in a conga line singing their own song. A dancing girl with a jug of beer in one hand and a glass in the other seemed determined to get us as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. And a laughing woman with a bunch of leaves tied to a stick kept poking people in the genitals. I'm not sure what that was all about.
Brilliant.
Eventually our driver found us and finally, reluctantly we left to drive home, cheering at every passing car and anyone we saw, dancing with the people in the truck behind us, and resolving to tip our wonderful driver who had put up with us so admirably.
It was the best day ever, Laos at it's absolute best. We were definitely feeling the love.
* For the duration of the rainy season, the monks stay in the one monestry - they are not confined and still wonder around their town, but they cannot travel - and they mark their 'release' by building great colourful boats and birds and dragons out of bamboo and paper, adorning them with candles, and floating them down the river.** Everyone else takes a public holiday and parties the day, and night, away. A happy drunken rabble passed our guesthouse, letting off fireworks and singing, at 2am.
** This should have been last night but, being Luang Prabang, they delay this spectacle until tonight - Saturday - when the crowd from Vientiane can join in.
We'll be heading north soon to a place called Luang Namtha where there is some wondeful trekking to be had, thence to China. So next time i write, we'll probably be facing the challenges of a chinese keyboard.