Jam n Cam in Vientiane
 The start of the boat festival by Cam ____________ Wow! October already, how time flies! Today was a very entertaining day indeed! Right now is a time of festivity in Laos as the boat festival kicks off - long boats seating up to fifty rowers are tugged out into the river and then compete in a race. Each village has their races on different days and thus people take the holiday at different times. There is a set holiday with the real boat races in around a week or so from now. The village that our friend Vivian from VIS stays in had their races today. We drove down to her place by motorbike and were astounded at the amount of people on the road! People come to Vientiane from all the provinces during this holiday and Vivian`s village was totally packed! All along the river bank were stalls with games, prizes and food. It`s a real carnival type atmosphere only instead of hotdogs, fairy floss and jam donuts there`s fried grasshopper stands and pork bun stalls! There were eight of us in total, all falang except for Jamie. A group of falangs this large wading through the little Laoatians was sure to cause a stir and we were sure getting our fare share of stares! There weren`t many other foreigners around and a lot of the Lao people were from the countryside where they don`t see foreigners too often. This meant that when all the men got drunk (by 11 in the morning) they would come up to us and shake our hands and try to speak the few words of English they knew. I would surprise them by speaking back in Lao which led to even more handshakes and drunken murmuring! Jamie, being the face of VIS, knows all the parents of the children that go there. A lot of these people are quite important folk, everywhere we go these days somebody`s greeting Jamie and I`m introduced to hundreds of foreign experts from all over the world! As we were walking along the riverbank sifting through the hordes of spectators, we came to an area full of large houses belonging to foreigners. A lady on a balcony of a giant three story house called out to Jamie and then invited us all in for a drink! She took us up to her balcony where we had an excellent view of the boat races! The lady was indonesian and her children go to VIS. She served us soft drinks and chips and things and it was very refreshing and nice to be out of the sun for a bit. It pays to know Jamie!! After sitting a while it was time to see the rest of the village festival so we thanked our hosts, excused ourselves and carried on down the river bank. There was lots of different food to try and some very strange games. One popular Lao game featured a table with six different animals in boxes painted on it. I believe the pictures were of a shrimp, a frog, a grasshopper, a rooster, a pig and a gourd. You have to put money on one or between two of the animal pictures and then the owner of the stall will roll three picture dice. If your animal comes up you get the money, if not you lose it. Jamie became quite nostalgic and told me that she remembered playing this very game with her sister when they were children! She had a version with a proper board and plastic dice, apparently. I was watching for quite a while before the owner of the stall told the lady next to her, in Lao, that the foreigner didn`t know how to play. I politely spoke to her in Lao and told her that we don`t have this game in my country, however I could figure out the rules by watching. She asked me to put money down but I checked my pockets and didn`t have any. Her response was that as a foreigner I should have lots of money!! We all regrouped and then moved over to a section near the riverbank to watch the final rowers come through the finish line. The teams all wear colourful outfits - there`s a green team, a blue team, a pink team, a yellow team etc. After that we moved on to have a look at the village temple which had a concert going on. The music was blasting from about five giant speakers piled up one on top of the other whilst huge crowds of drunken, red-faced Laoatians danced on. We opted for a quieter place where we sat and had some beer. At this particular spot the Lao folk were line dancing, something that looks quite out of place in Asia! They`re very good at it though and none of us were game enough to give it a go. Eventually when the Lao music came on and they kept encouraging us to dance. I volunteered to go up and Fon (traditional Lao dance) and Ginny, our dutch friend came up too and the Lao people had a good chuckle. Finally it was time to go home. Before we left Vivian gave us her spare keys as we`ll be housesitting for her starting next Friday. She`s going to Myanmar for a week and asked us to look after the house. It`s a beautiful house - an old Lao style wooden house but all done up and modern on the inside. We`re looking forward to staying there very much to get some privacy and peace and quiet - a taste of what`s to come when we finally have a place of our own.
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Diary Photos
| 1st Oct 2006 | |
| Boat Festival Starting up | |
| This is is the main street during festival mode. Note all the stalls on either side of the road. This is the middle of a work day so not too many people are around but on the weekends it's packed. |
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