A dawn festival
Saturday, November 24th, 2007After two nights in Phonsavanh for the Plain of Jars and three in Vang Vieng enjoying the scenery but otherwise avoiding the usual scene there – you can’t imagine how bizarre and weird it is to walk down a street in third-world Laos and literally be able to hear three different Friends episodes simultaneously blaring from multiple screens in three competing, adjacent ‘traveller’ cafes – we took a songthaew yesterday afternoon to the capital Vientiane.
Today at the holiest Buddhist shrine in the country, That Luang, the most important annual religious festival in Laos took place – Boun That Luang. We woke at 5:15am and took a tuk-tuk to the temple to be there by 6am and were joined by a few dozen foreigners and thousands of Lao worshippers (maybe 10,000?) in what was one of the highlights of our short trip so far. For the full moon of the 12th lunar month, monks from all over the country have descended on Vientiane in recent days. The Lao faithful, many dressed in their best clothing, arrived at the temple before dawn and took their spots in the courtyard – we did the same. It was still dark when we arrived but the temple was illuminated, giving the place an atmosphere of anticipation. Hundreds (more?) monks were waiting inside the courtyard and out with their empty alms bowls in front of them; but they would have to wait a little while longer.
As the sun came up – and it was a beautiful day – a monk led a prayer and chanting session for about half an hour. After that, the procedures were over and the Lao began lining up to give their alms to the monks. These mostly consisted of small amounts of money (500 and 1,000 kip notes – five and 10 American cents), packets of wafer biscuits, flowers, fruit and – of course – the country’s most ubiquitous food item, that goes with virtually every meal: sticky rice. This glutinous rice makes up 85 per cent of all rice grown in Laos and Laos is the largest consumer of glutinous rice in the world. Its insane popularity here is quite unusual because none of the neighbouring countries seem to eat it at all and, similarly, the Lao don’t go for steamed rice at all; once we saw steamed rice on a restaurant menu as ‘irregular rice’.
While the alms giving was taking place, many monks had to scoop all the sticky rice out of their bowls into containers behind them to stop the overflow and by the end, they had so much stuff that they each had to haul it away in large plastic garbage bags. It was wonderful to be a part of such a beautiful ceremony, yet another reminder for me of how peaceful this religion is. It was also the best chance I’ve ever had to photograph Buddhist monks without the usual inhibitions, so I was very pleased about that.
I’ve put up some photos from the festival and will hopefully upload more in the next few days, as we have to stick around Vientiane to get our visas for Cambodia, before heading to the south of Laos. We’ve been in the country for three weeks already and figure on being here for 2-3 more – luckily we were stamped in for 60 days on arrival instead of 30…
Nick