Luang Prabang: Boun Xuang Heua

This week, there was the Boat Racing Festival! It's a week long Buddhist holiday formally called Boun Xuang Heua, and it's the end of Buddhist lent. We got school off, so we decided to travel up north to a beautiful and quiet town called Luang Prabang. It was kind of touristy, but still really cool and calm.

The drive up was quite rough, in a van that was super bumpy! I was so car sick but the views were amazing! One of the nights, there was a boat parade type of thing for Boun Xuang Heua, and it was so energetic and beautiful!

These boats were HUGE and illuminated by candles. They had money, treats, and other things on them to give to some gods for their rice paddies to thrive I think. but you walked down the street, and everyone was so happy and excited, (and a little drunk), but you could just feel the energy, it was awesome!

Most of the people preparing the boats were high schoolers, having tons of fun!

Im not sure how these boats didn't catch on fire!

The little girl was actually really cute, but hey, sometimes the camera aint kind

So we looked at all these boats and stuff for a long time, it was so cool! There was drums and music and monks chanting some ancient stuff, it was crazy! Many people buy these mini boats full of flowers to send down the river, and they say that as you send them down the river, you send all your worries and troubles away with it. You can also buy floating lanterns like on tangled. The sky was full of them!

here's one of the mini boats!

After the festival, we went and grabbed street food, which was soooo good! Just a good ol freshly caught grilled fish and some sticky rice, mango, and a banana smoothie!

More about Luang Prabang to come!