Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LUANG PRABANG FESTIVALS
Luang Prabang's sleepy air is disturbed only at festival time. The most famous festivals
last for days and inspire a
lào-láo
-sodden carnival atmosphere that makes it easy to forget
that these complex rituals held the very structure of the kingdom in place for centuries.
Lao
New Year
(
pi mai lao
) in April is perhaps Luang Prabang's biggest festival, a week-long
celebration that begins with a beauty pageant and sees the town (and everyone in it) doused
with water - a tradition that has its origins in cleansing rituals designed to wash away the
spirits of the old year. On day one, sand stupas are erected in monastery grounds, while
the rowdier (and damper) festivities begin with a costumed parade - led by Miss Lao New
Year - on day two. Day three dawns with a special
Tak Bat
up to the summit of Phousi,
Bang
is carried in a solemn procession led by the city's guardian spirits from the Royal
Palace to Wat Mai, where it is ritually bathed to mark the arrival of the new year's spirit
(day five), before being returned in another colourful procession to the Royal Palace on the
morning of the final day of celebrations.
Near the end of the monsoon, two more holidays bring Luang Prabang to a festive stand-
still. The city's
boat races
(late August/September) are believed to lure Luang Prabang's
fifteen guardian
naga
back into the rivers after high waters and flooded rice paddies have
allowed them to escape. The
FestivalofLights
(
Lai Heau Fai
) follows on the full moon in
October. In the days leading up to the festival residents build large floats and festoon them
with lights. Then, under the full moon, the floats are paraded through the streets, where
they are judged for aesthetic merit, and carried down to the Mekong and set atop boats for
a second procession on the river. All evening, vendors offer saucer-sized floats made from
banana stalks and containing flowers, incense and a candle, which celebrants take down to
the river and launch on the current. The Festival of Lights is celebrated concurrently with
AwkPhansa
, the end of the three-month “rains retreat”, a time when laypeople donate new
robes and other offerings to Buddhist monasteries.
Brief history
Knowledge of Luang Prabang's early history is sketchy, at best. The earliest Lao settlers
made their way down the Nam Ou valley sometime after the tenth century, absorbing the ter-
ritory on which the city lies. At the time, the area was known as Muang Sawa, a settlement
thought to have been peopled by the Austroasiatic ancestors of the Lao Theung. According
to folklore, this migration of the Lao to Luang Prabang was led by Khoun Lo, who claimed
the area for his people and called the settlement
Xieng Dong Xieng Thong
. By the end of
the thirteenth century, Xieng Dong Xieng Thong had emerged as one of the chief centres of