Boat Racing - The Guide Hog

After Saturday night’s Loi Ga Thong adventure, I had mixed feelings about venturing back in to town for the boat racing on Sunday. I hated to be the kind of expat who sits in her comfy air-conditioned house, cut off from the culture of her host country. That was me at this time last year. But I also hated the thought of fighting the crowds for a glimpse of the river, even though I knew a few ladies who would be competing.

Around 7 a.m. Tony and I rode into town for breakfast. After eating, we tentatively walked toward the river and found it relatively deserted so early in the morning. We discovered the tiered concrete observation area, where people were just beginning to gather. We watched a few races, unsure if they were officially part of the competition or merely warming up for the real events. I decided I had fulfilled my vow to watch the races in person and happily headed home before the crowds got unnerving.

Back at the house, I turned on the computer to upload photos and do a little blogging. I figured I should also print off our e-tickets and hotel reservation for our trip to Phuket, Thailand, the next day.

When I opened the email with our hotel reservation, I looked at the check-in date and then looked at today’s date on my laptop. They were the same. That meant our flight was today. TODAY. Panic set in. Deep inhale. Deep exhale. I frantically looked for our e-ticket. Anxiety made me stupid, and our slow internet connection only exacerbated my desperation. Did I make the reservation through my Yahoo account or my school email account? I toggled back and forth between the two tabs, tapping my finger on the table uncontrollably as the blue bar crept slowly across the screen indicating the pages might open eventually.

When I finally found the e-ticket, I froze. I had been certain that we were flying on Monday, but the e-ticket showed our flight was at 4:55 p.m. Sunday. Again, TODAY. That wouldn’t be such a big deal if we were flying from Vientiane, but I had saved big bucks by booking our ticket out of Udon Thani, Thailand. The Friendship Bridge to Thailand is just 19 kilometers from our house, and Udon Thani is only one hour from there. Kham, a kind Lao guy who works in the IT Department at school, had agreed to drive us there TOMORROW.

Tony came down the stairs just as I was processing the realization that we had to leave ASAP. He turned right around and went upstairs to pack. I alternated between calm problem-solving mode and absolute panic.

I tried to call Kham but got no answer. I then called another teacher for suggestions and found out that we could catch an airport taxi at the bridge, but first we had to GET to the bridge. I ran outside and scanned the street, but there were none of the usual parked tuk-tuks. I found a card for a driver who had taken me to the Vientiane airport in the past. He said he was unavailable, but his friend could drive us to the Udon Thani airport for 2,500 Thai Baht, almost $100. What else could I do? So I arranged for him to pick us up in 20 minutes.

I ran around the house like a maniac, shoving armfuls of underwear in a duffel, putting dirty dishes in the sink, hanging wet laundry on the line, standing dumbly in the bathroom with no memory of how to pack a toiletry bag. I accomplished very little.

Finally, Kham returned my call. “I’m such an idiot!” I cried. “Our flight is today, not tomorrow!”

“It’s OK,” he said. “I’m free. I can be there in 30 minutes.” Is he awesome, or what? I called to cancel the taxi and then tried to calm down enough to pack. I didn’t really succeed in getting calm, but I did manage to pack with some sense of logic.

Tony and I both felt terribly uncomfortable asking Kham for a ride in the first place. He’s a lovely guy, but we don’t know him very well. I have met his Thai wife, and I knew they frequently crossed the border to Udon Thani, her hometown. So I had said to Kham, “IF you’re going to Udon ANYWAY on Monday, can we catch a ride to the airport?” I emphasized that I didn’t want him to make a special trip for us, but he insisted that it wouldn’t be a problem. And now here we were, asking him to drop everything and take us on short notice.

Nearly an hour passed, and there was still no sight of Kham. When I called him, he confirmed what we had suspected. The festival had created a traffic nightmare. By now, there was no guarantee we would make it to the airport on time. We couldn’t predict how long it would take to cross the border. I’ve gotten through in a few minutes on my bike, but I’ve also waited for two hours when I rode in a van with other teachers.

Fortunately, Kham was an old hand at the border and even knew many of the immigration officials on both sides of the bridge. We had to stop twice – leaving Laos and entering Thailand – but both times, he pulled right up to the front of the line, took our passports and paperwork and returned shortly with the stamps. He could sense my anxiety, and he kept saying, “There is a lot of time. Don’t worry!”

Sure enough, we made it to Udon Thani with time for a quick lunch at McDonald’s. He dropped us at the airport and even came in to make sure everything was OK. It was. And it still is. Thanks to Kham, we are in paradise for the next few days, and we can relax at last.

One glimpse of the crowds at last year’s Boat Racing Festival was enough to send me straight home, where I watched the dragonboat races on TV. Later I regretted being such a coward. I vowed to step out of my comfort zone this year to experience one of Laos’ most highly-anticipated celebrations.

The holiday, which is tied to the lunar calendar, fell on a weekend this year. The boat races were scheduled for Sunday, and the Buddhist ritual of Loi Ka Thong would take place Saturday night.

I arranged to join some Lao friends for Loi Ka Thong. Websites, such as Laos Guide 999, set the stage for a tranquil, holy tradition.

Boun Awk Phansa is the last day of the Buddhist lent. It occurs in October, three lunar months after Khao Phansa on the 15th day of the 11th month of the lunar calendar. It is a day of many celebrations, most notably the boat race festival held in Vientiane.
On the first day at dawn, donations and offerings are made at temples around the country; in the evening, candlelight processions are held around the temples and it is the celebration of lai heua fai or Loi ka thong, when everyone sends small lighted ‘boats’ made of banana stems or banana leaves decorated with candles and flowers down the rivers.
These are said to pay respect to the Buddha and to thank the mother of rivers for providing water for our lives. Some believe that the lai heua fai procession is an act to pay respect to nagas that lives in the rivers, while others send the lighted boats down the river to ask for blessing and to float bad luck of the past year away enabling the good luck to flow in. Most towns with a river bank nearby will engage in this lovely ceremony. In bigger towns there are also processions of lighted boats, and the ceremony is more popular especially among young romantic couples. Villagers who live far from rivers set up model boats (made of banana stems) decorated with flowers and candlelight, while others simply light up some candles in front of their houses and do their little prayer wishing for good luck. This colorful rituals have been carried on by Lao people for thousands of years.

We were going to visit a temple, purchase a banana-leaf Ka Thong boat, join the procession to the Mekong and set sail our little boats after blessing the river and asking forgiveness for any eco-wrong-doings.

But first, we had to meet for Indian food in the heart of the festival chaos. The river road in downtown Vientiane was cut off from traffic and lined with stalls selling all sorts of wares usually purchased at a supermarket (and at the same prices). Massive speakers faced off, blaring what I can only assume were the qualities of the shampoo, toilet paper, cooking oil, or other products for sale at that particular stall. Vendors without a swanky audio system used static-y megaphones to promote the free samples, which flowed like … well, like juice, milk, whiskey, beer, soda and hand lotion. Complementing the cacophony, loudspeakers pounded out a steady bass beat with no discernable melody.

Tony and I parked where we always do, a few blocks from the action at Nam Phu Fountain, and then dove in to the melee. At this point, the river road was crowded but not unbearable. With so many storefronts blocked by the stalls, we occasionally had to pause to get our bearings. Finally we found the restaurant, Nazim, and scoffed at the option to eat outside. We eagerly plopped down at an indoor table, happy for a break from the noise (although we really couldn’t escape from the pulsing beat, which created ripples in our water glasses and reverberated through our bodies).

Soon we were joined by Lao friends Lae and Mai (and Mai’s friend, Khanha), as well as our school librarian, Jeannete, and her husband, Basim. I enjoyed the meal and the company, but I was itching to experience Loi Ka Thong.

Jeannete got a call during dinner from some cyclists riding through Laos. “We’re here!” they told her. She and Basim participate in an online organization that finds spare beds for people bicycling around the world. So they had to dash home. Tony also took off (and then came back to retrieve his keys, which he’d left on the table). Finally, the rest of the girls were ready to go.

I made the classic expat faux pas of assuming that because my friends were Lao, they certainly must know how this tradition works. Unfortunately, after wandering aimlessly for a while, I discovered that was not the case. Lae admitted she hadn’t participated in Loi Ka Thong since she was in high school. Mai said her family lived too far from the river, and they only had one bicycle, so participating in the ritual at the Mekong wasn’t feasible.

We ducked in to Wat Ong Teu, only to find we had missed the temple’s procession. Several monks were sitting behind a large table lined with metal bowls. Mai explained that you make a donation, collect a little plate of tiny coins and then drop one coin in each of the 99 bowls to ask for blessings. Cool. Of course, I was chatting the whole time I did it, so I kept losing track of where I had dropped my coins. “Is it bad karma to skip a bowl or to drop in more than one coin?” I asked. They just laughed at me.

Back on the river road, the crowd had reached maximum capacity. We slowly shuffled upstream as the Mekong River – blocked from our vision by market stalls, inflated bouncy castles, towering loudspeakers, and thousands of other pilgrims – rushed past us in the other direction. We reached one access point to the river, where a mob had bottlenecked with their Ka Thongs. The thought of joining them made my heart sink.

Lae received a call from Addie, who told us to keep walking. “It’s much less crowded up by the Mekong River Commission,” she said. And so we did. As we stumbled along, Lae shouted to me, “Now you see why I never do this!”

Eventually, we caught up with Addie, and sure enough, there was room to breathe. Addie had made her own Ka Thong (and many more, which she distributed to family members), so the rest of us purchased some from a vendor. Then we walked across a muddy stretch, descended some steep steps, scrambled down large wobbly rocks to the river’s edge and stepped on to a slippery floating dock. With my long temple-appropriate skirt tangling around my legs, camera dangling from my neck and one hand carrying my Ka Thong like a pizza, I felt quite relieved to make it that far in one piece.

The girls helped me light the candles and a sparkler on my Ga Thong, and then we each took turns offering a blessing to the river and asking forgiveness before reaching down to release our little boats. The strong current immediately swept them away, and the lights quickly blended together in the darkness.

Dripping with sweat, shaking from the treacherous climb back up to the river road, and still reeling from crowd-induced anxiety, I thanked my lovely friends for sharing their tradition with me. It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but I had the same experience as thousands of Lao people on this holy day, and that’s exactly what I had wanted.

It’s still early, and the crowds are thin.