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At home, New Year is only one evening. New Years Eve. That's it. In Lao, they celebrate new year for 5 days. Or more, couldn't really tell when it started and ended, and the locals told us different days.. But still; for a very long time! The first morning when we woke up, we discovered some people had water guns and had a fun time shooting at everyone who passed by on the street. "Okey well, we heard of this, some new year-thing they do here.." But this was only the beginning! When we got on the main street there were even more shooting people (mostly kids), and the water guns were bigger! Outside some restaurants and shops they even had hoses which they easily pointed at any people in their reach!
Water fight!
The longer the day went on, the more shooters got on the street, so in the afternoon it had turned to a real battlefield!! The roads were filled with trucks with people on, loaded with waterbuckets and big guns! They sang and played loud music, drank beer and just partying! We got soaked all the time, impossible to hide or run away; the water was everywhere! Our Canadian friends Ainsley and Sarah, bought some crepes, since me and Evelina wanted to find the Scandinavian Bakery, which we heard was gonna be somewere in Luang Prabang! Unfortunately the bakery was closed since it was a national holiday, so we went for some yoghurt and baguettes instead.
When we got out on the street again they added some colour and flour to the water fight, so now we got both soaked, coloured and white all over our faces, body and bags. Would recommend anyone who goes here in new year to buy a waterproof bag, which they sell everywhere! The shooters shows NO consideraton for phones, cameras and other expensive stuff that will be ruined by water!
Lovely!
We didn't do so many special thing the first day; ate, drank, did useless tries to avoid the water, and ate a abit more.. :p We became frequent customers at a "fika-stand" (they sold cakes and cookies), and also bought the best oreo-shake we ever tried!! And all this was on the street, so easy and SO good!
The next day we took a tuk-tuk to the waterfall Kuangsi, which is about 45 minutes from the city. Here it was really crowded, but not by western tourist, no there were mostly locals, and maybe people from other cities in Lao. The waterfall were divided into sections, all comming from a huge waterfall on a small mountain. We climbed up with some difficulty, and saw the fall from above. Down again and had some baguetts (from the best stand in the city) then we swinged ourselves in a rope swing into the blue-green water in a lagoon. Really fun, but would have been nice with less people there..
Kuangsi Waterfall
We'd thought we culd escape the waterfight by going on the trip, but oh so wrong we were! The people (kids) in the villages outside the town had their guns and buckets ready to throw water at all the motorbikes, cars and tuk-tuks passing by. We got soaked on the way back but it didn't matter so much, since a it had strated raining really heavy all of a sudden!
The last day Sarah felt sick, so me, Evelina and Ainsley went out in the battlefield to try get some breakfast! We made it safe to the cafe and though it was really empty on the streets this day. But we were wrong again, cuz this ended up being the worst of those three days! After sitting at another cafe (I know... :p) for a while me and Ainsley surrendered and decided to be a part of a street-team (now they had divided into teams on each side)! We used our water bottles and filled them by a hose someone held up for our team, and we had the best time ever!! It was sooo crazy; water, colour and flour everywhere! No rules, no boundaries, just drench people! Felt like a child again! Wish I could bring this tradition to Sweden!! When the sun started to go down it got cooler in the air, and we decided to go back to our hotel to meet up with Evelina and Sarah. But not before we stopped by a baguette -and sandwich stand! ;)
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