Laos New Years!

We arrived to Luang Prabang (a World Heritage site) in the afternoon, and were promptly warned by our Laos guide to protect all our valuables because they would get wet on the ride to the guest house. The Laos people celebrate New Years by throwing water into the street onto people/cars passing by...for good luck. He was not kidding about needing to protect our belongings. We had bucket after bucket tossed on us! It was good fun, and not annoying because it was so hot. Although, after a few days of this, it did really start to get annoying.

The guesthouse we stayed at was really, really nice. We were in bungalows with balconies overlooking a nicely manicured lawn. We slept under mosquito nets and ate wonderfully cooked breakfast on our deck. The only downside was that it was a bit far from town, so walking wasn't an option. This meant we had to go in groups whenever we went out, hence why getting to internet was hard.

The next day we got up early to go to the waterfalls. After a strenuous hike to the top, we cooled off in one of the aqua blue swimming areas, and we even used the rope swing, which was being dominated by little Laos boys for a lot of the time. That afternoon we headed back into town to catch the New Years parade. Where we proceeded to get soaking wet, and in addition lots of flour was thrown on us (also supposedly a blessing for good luck, but they have taken it to a new extreme level). By the end of the parade we were so exhausted from the heat and dirty from the buckets of water and flour, that we headed home showered and then got ready to head back into town to hit up the night markets.

The night markets were a lot of fun to look at really interesting art work, jewelry, clothing, and also a lot of crap. Since we were tired, we made this visit brief, the next night though we stayed a lot longer.