Boat Racing Festival, which marks the end of Buddhist Lent, is still a week away, but the banks of the Mekong are already teeming with excitement. Carol and I took a little stroll this morning to see the dragon boat teams train on the river.
After more than five years in Asia, why did I still envision watching the action from a quiet riverside bench? Silly me. This should have been a tip-off.
There were, in fact, some people hanging out and watching the boats…
… but the biggest attractions were on land. Food vendors, carnival games, and street stalls hawking all sorts of wares competed for space along the muddy path.
One temple had converted its grounds into a kiddie park, complete with a massive inflated bouncy castle/slide and a few rides.
We wandered into another temple, where carnival chaos reigned. Even the tiniest festival-goers threw darts at balloons, fired slingshot ammunition and tennis balls at soda bottles and aimed BB guns at matchboxes. At the same time, families and monks ate lunch in the temple’s ornate worship hall. Surely there’s some deep meaning lurking in the carney atmosphere juxtaposed against the ancient temple architecture.
Shoppers on the river path had a wealth of options: mountains of clothes, bras, hair accessories, shoes, cheap plastic toys, etc. But cartoon balloons and toy guns seemed to be today’s top sellers.
These toy packages cracked me up. I love that the “Kitchen Playset” includes a hot chick in go-go boots, a stovetop cooker, four enormous sea creatures, two relatively small chairs, and various cooking implements, and the “Newfangled Series Tableware” offers up a plate of grubs with ice cream for dessert.
Feeling peckish? With so many snacking options, it may be hard to choose.
Chicken feet?
A bag of tiny speckled eggs?
Unidentified deep-fried balls?
Stinky flattened squid?
Bamboo stuffed with sweetened sticky rice?
Spicy papaya salad?
No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you.
Hmmm, OK.
Yes, please!
I can’t believe I missed out on all this last year. I was such a baby. And this is just the beginning. Can’t wait to see the REAL festival next weekend!
Glad that you went to the street fair this time then, and even better: brought your camera! Now to see if you’ll suffer the crowds and watch the races next week!
I miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss you so very much.
Did you see the bumper cars? We were there on the day of and were amazed that a bumper car arena suddenly appeared downtown. Where did that even come from?!?