New Year – Songkran – in Luang Prabang, Laos

A day that started with a bold sun, a walk at Kuang Si Falls, the beautiful waterfall located a few kilometers from Luang Prabang, and an energizing game with butterflies, which I talked about in the previous story, quickly exhausted our rest reserves. We got back on our feet with an hour of sleep and soon we were looking for a cruise on the Mekong, with a direct view of the sunset. As the boat left the port at 5 pm, we had enough time for a massage. The travel agency where we were had such a salon, but the hardest part was convincing my husband to abandon himself to the hands of a Laotian woman and try a foot massage, for only 6 dollars 🙂 Just when I was thanking heaven for accepting and admiring him lying on the bed waiting for the moment of relaxation and the girl with velvety hands, a rather solid man appeared from the next room, ready to take his role seriously 🙂 I was luckier, but for him it was more relaxing to be able to press his phone in peace for an hour than the massage itself, and his conclusion was: a bit painful. Seriously?!? 🙂 A few minutes later we were on the boat, ready to discover the Mekong. We had taken this cruise without knowing much about the program, so we found ourselves with a fabulous dinner, with traditional Laotian dances and songs, performed by a few young people who were no more than 16 years old, a moment enjoyed with pleasure by the tourists. A 2-hour tour on the river followed, pictures taken insatiably at sunset, although the horizon was covered in fog, many dishes that I would not have known what they contained if I had not had a description on the table and it all ended with applause for the girls who swayed in tune with the movements of the boat. In Laotian tunes, we parted ways with the crew and arrived back in the hustle and bustle of the night market, where we started the hunt for silver bracelets, elephant pants, traditional bags and fridge magnets, although we still didn’t have any checked luggage 🙂 we only had one more day to spend in Laos, and I couldn’t leave without souvenirs – my friends know why 🙂 We ended the evening on a terrace near the hotel, in almost perfect silence, disturbed only by the sounds of the little gecko reptiles that, I forgot to tell you, are everywhere in Asia. The next day had other adventures in store for us. It was the day before April 13th, when Songkran – Lao New Year is celebrated. Young people in Laos started preparations for the big water splashing earlier, so from the early hours of the morning, wherever you went in the city, you woke up soaked to the skin. We avoided this as much as we could. Considering the humid conditions that were preparing for us outside the hotel and the adrenaline of teenagers who would give anything to get you wet with buckets of water, hoses, or whatever containers they had at hand, we made a very wise decision. We went to the guy at the reception and told him that we would like to see the countryside around Luang Prabang, we asked him to recommend a tuk tuk driver who spoke good English, an aspect that we emphasized about 3 times. We explained that we wanted to avoid walking around the city today, so as not to have to change into dry clothes dozens of times. In 10 minutes we already had the driver, the tuk-tuk and our adventure outside the city could begin. Before leaving, I approached them both and told them once again that we wanted to go to the rural areas, that we didn't want to be splashed with water, and that whenever we knocked on the window separating us from the driver, he should stop and we should get out to take pictures. They both smiled, exchanged a few words in their language, and we left.Half an hour later we were soaked from head to toe, with clothes sticking to us, with our camera hidden in seven bags, with our phones hidden under the seats of the tuk-tuk and… very close to our hotel. I looked at my husband, he at me and exclaimed: we are still here, this is crazy. I waited another 10 minutes but, what do you see, where there were several young people with buckets of water, I slowed down, they approached merrily and poured water directly on our heads, because the vehicle we were traveling in only had a roof. We did not understand what was happening. It was becoming increasingly clear that he had understood exactly the opposite, namely that we really wanted to walk the streets so that the children could have something to laugh about. I do not have many pictures of us being attacked from all directions, because the technical equipment was well placed in shelter. Quite nervous, I told her to stop and showed her the area where we wanted to go: beyond the Mekong, where are those houses, do you see them? She didn't understand English!!! After 2 laps of the city and circling the queue, with our wet clothes on, we arrived where we wanted to go, in the rural towns near Luang Prabang. There too, we couldn't escape the young men armed with water pistols, but they were calmer. At one point, we saw a local market and went down to buy fruit: bananas, longans, mangoes and other small things that I don't know, for 3 kg of mixed fruit we paid 2.5 dollars. We returned to the city just as the rain started, so what did it matter if someone wanted to splash us with water? We went to the local market and ate two sandwiches prepared by a little girl who was no more than 12 years old. I played with some beautiful children, took another walk through the night market, then went to the hotel where we fell into a deep sleep. It was our last night in Laos...