Festivals

Laos

Festivals
December 31/January 1: Laotians celebrate the international new yea's eve/day January/early February (new moon): Chinese and Vietnamese minorities celebrate their new year February (full moon): Buddhists celebrate the occasion when Buddha spoke to 1,250 monks who arrived, unbidden, at the same time. It is a time for chanting, making merit with offerings and processions around the wats Mid-April: Celebration of the lunar new year all over Laos but especially in Luang Prabang and Vientiane, both of which have elephant processions. It is a time when the old year is washed away and the new is welcomed: homes are cleaned, people wear new clothes and Buddha images are ritually washed. Flowers and fruit are offered in temples, and the street fun includes the none-to-ritualistic dousing of others with water. May (full moon): Celebration of Buddha's birth, enlightenment and passing away with chanting, sermons and offerings in the temples Late May/early June: The Rocket Festival, perhaps the jolliest of all the festivals with everyone intent on having fun July: The start of the monks' traditional three-month rainy season retreat. It is also the time when boys and young men go into the Shangha for a brief spell or maybe for longer. Late August/early September (full moon): The festival for the dead. Gifts are presented to the Sangha and the monks chant for the dead. It is a favoured time for cremations and bones are exhumed to be cremated Late October or early November: The end of the monks' rainy season retreat. Also, the water festival when teams compete in boat races. The boats can be seen in wats by the river all year but they are done up and crewed for the highly-competitive festivities November (full moon): The That Luang Festival in Vientiane. The festival includes mass offerings to monks, a procession from Vientiane's busiest wat, Si Muang, and a candlelit procession round That Luang , which is a symbol of Laos and fuses state and state religion December 2: Lao National Day, commemorating the communist victory over the royalists in 1975 – the birth of the Lao People's Democratic Republic Luang Prabang Vang Vieng Front Page

Public holidays 2000

January 1-3: New Year

January 20: Military Day

March 8: Women's Day

April 13-15: Lunar New Year

May 1: May Day parade, Vientiane

July 16: Buddhist lent

October 13: End of Buddhist lent

November 11: That Luang festival

December 2: National Day

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Boun Bang Fai – the Rocket Festival – harnesses village and temple to common ends, drawing together the community, family and friends at the beginning of the rainy season between the middle of May and early June.

The bang fai are made from bamboo or plastic tubes stuffed with gunpowder made from sulphur and charcoal, with a long stick for some hope of stability and bright decorations.

Usually, the production of the bang fai are cooperative efforts between monks, novices and villagers.

The festival's origins are lost in time and there are competing explanations for its purpose. Some say it is to ask the gods for rain, others that it marks Buddha's birth, enlightenment and passing on – and the more pragmatic argue that it is just for the villagers' entertainment before growing rice.

It is certainly a colourful, joyful festival with villagers hosting relatives and friends for the day and a Bang Fai procession.

The bang fai muen – the smaller rocket weighing in at a mere 12kg – and its bigger brothers are followed around the temple by dancers, merrymakers and people with huge representations of male and female organs to shock the gods and provoke lightning and rain.

At the end of the procession, comes the competition.

The rockets are set up on launch structures in a rice field on the edge of the village. Tension mounts – the bets are laid – and the winner is the one whose rocket goes furthest along the course.

The loser, whose hopes explode or just fizzle out, pays the price – sometimes with a good dunking in the buffalos' pond.

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	Rocket festival
	Buddha's ways
	Luang Prabang
	Vientiane
	Front page