Ah yes, the famous full moon parties of south-east asia...The one I attended in little Thakek, Laos, felt more like a local county faire than the raving, white-washed mob-scenes I have heard about in larger cities and especially on Phuket Island in Thailand. Here is the story of my festival experience:
I return to the Travel Lodge from a morning wandering Thakek's streets, checking out their market, and adventuring 8km from town to see thier Great Wall (see my blog entry Great Wall of Southern Laos, which I intend to write shortly), and pick out a 40 cent watermellon from the 50' long x 4' deep x 3' tall pile 4 families are selling from in front of my hostel. I ask the kitchen staff to butcher my enormous prize and we share the spoils. Sitting on the terrace patio to relax a bit, I hear 3 teen-age boys rocking out on their 5-stringed, untuned guitar and laughing. Music to my ears.
One of the guesthouse employees sits down opposite me. I offer some of the garlic-flavored mellon (thanks, Travel Lodge kitchen knife!), and the now familiar conversation begins: Where you from? What is your name? Do you have a boyfriend at home? Sometimes I say no, sometimes I invent someone (usually someone very tall and strong...), but this time I approximate the truth: I have a few interests back home, but it's a bit complicated as I am away for 6 months/indefinitely. I get the usual disappointment from my unavailability and the usual disbelief that I am single and traveling alone. What you do tonight? You like dancing? Sure, I say! Haven't done that yet on this trip...we make a plan to meet at 7 and go out for Karaoke and dancing.
7PM arrives and I shower and throw on my one pair of pants, relatively clean tee-shirt, and top it with my sarong and head downstairs. My friend is no where in sight! I wonder if I have been stood up and chat idly with fellow travelers for a bit (everyone truely has a story and many are facinating!). The third time I wander by looking for Er, some Lodge employees invite me to join them for dinner. Oh, yes, thank you! I sit down for sticky rice, spicy (spicy-spicy!!) green papaya salad, roasted eggs (not sure how they're made...they're all one consistency, like custard, and have veggies inside the shells on top. Tastey, so I have a second, but sketchy, so I decline the third), and passing on the roast chicken (kin jay, I explain I am vegetarian) we finish the meal with khao-laos, a delicious sweetened sticky rice, either purple grained or white, stuffed in bamboo for convenient transport. My conversational host is Tac, who speaks excellent English and works in the biotech industry in San Diego, visiting his family in Laos for a few weeks each year. The 4-some I dine with are old friends and it shows. We laugh together and I feel very welcome and happy to be fed.
After the meal, I find Er dressed very nicely in slacks and a button down shirt in the kitchen finishing up his noodle soup dinner. Ready? Ok! We hop on the back of his scooter and drive off into the darkness. The streets are largely empty and Er seems a skilled bike pilot, but I am terrified. Unlike my previous bike rides in Thialand and Luang Prabang, it is dark, I cannot see the street surface, and imagine I would not be comforted if I could. I am on the back of a bike with a near-stranger, clueless about where we are going (probably my biggest worry), and periodically jarred by potholes and dirt stretches in the road. We twist and turn through some sketchy back streets and I lose my sense of direction. Tuk-tuks abound, so if something happens and I need a ride home I'll be ok. I do not feel directly threatened, so I decide to trust all is for the best. Maintaining my death grip on the scooter's passenger handles under my seat, I soon realize we are headed for the Full Moon Festial at the Stuppa south of town. Relaxing a bit as I now know where I am, I wish I knew how to ask Er to slow down in Laos (his English is mediocre), but I keep quiet.
Shortly before arriving at the faire, strange grating/squeeking noises emit from the front end of his bike and our momentum skips a bit...sounds and feels like the brakes are grabbing. We stop and I hop off...Uhoh, Bike broken. He pushes it back and forth, pulls the brakes a bit and decides it's not too bad. I have visions of the brakes grabbing completely at 50kph and us spilling across the road leaving our skins behind, but say nothing, get on, and head the last few km to the faire.
We arrive in one piece (why do I get so neurotic sometimes?), he pays to park the bike and for us to enter, gentleman-style. The road to enter the faire is lined with vendors selling oranges; roasted bananas, potatos, chicken, sausage, and pork balls; drinks (alcoholic and non); and khao-laos tubes of sticky rice. The faire itself is a maze of carnival stalls, local tourism attraction information, cell phone vendors, washing machines (washing machines??) for sale, beautiful wood carvings, and several stages with bad music and dancers. I am intrigued that most folks at this festival are locals out with their families for a good time. I enjoyed playing darts for candy and paid $1 so Er and I could watch two monkeys in tee-shirts and shorts with the bum cut out ride tiny bicycles around in a circle (rather sad, really) and then 4 people do a gravity-defying circus act in one of those spinning cylinder things about 30' tall. Coordinated by the leader's whistle, the 3 men and 1 woman assumed various relative orientations standing perpendicular to the 20' diameter revolving contraption that made them look like they were flying. My favorite was when they ran down the wall like spidermen, got plastic chairs to sit on, climbed back up the wall, struck a pose, then stood back up and the chairs slid CRASH down to the floor.
The center of the festival was Thakek's great golden stuppa, wrapped in lights and mobbed by people praying and making offerings of candles, incense, and flowers. 2000 Kip (20 cents) to get in (which I assume Er paid, as I just walked on by), I knelt and prayed for peace and prosperity and awakening and God's will in my life, with 3 prostrations to open and close the prayers: one for the Buddha, one for the Dhamma (his teaching/word), and one for the monks. A Thai man in Chiang Mai taught me how to fold my hands: you do not press your hands flat together, but close them just around the palm's edges and touch the fingertips, keeping them a bit open in the middle. The thumbs meet at the knuckles and arch outward a bit so your hands form the shape of a lotus. I wonder what the locals think of this falang and my offering, but I care less and less about judgement from others as my journey progresses. I probably will never see these folks again, so why not pray if I want to pray? I do my best to honor local custom, and I do not think I am offending anyone. Most people get a giggle out of it, I think, and so much the better for all of us and for the world.
To close our faire experience, we watched some bad music enthusiastically performed to a near empty beer garden and then watched a cultural performance from groups of about 20-30 elementary/middle school age kids doing Laos traditional dance in ornate jewel-toned costumes, embroidered with gold. The dance was simple--stepping back and forth, crossing their arms and extending one wrist above the shoulder and head so the hand looks like a flower blossoming. It was simple and stunningly beautiful to watch, but I cannot immitate it.
Returning to the bike, it seemed to work ok, yet my trepidations returned for the journey home. We arrived at the Travel Lodge 8km and 20-30 minutes later again in one piece, but I disembarked and told him I would probably hire a tuk-tuk to go see the Buddha Cave tomorrow because I heard the road was really shitty and I was scared to take the bike. He looked sad, but understood (my decision cost him a $10 guide fee). It was around 9PM and we had not done any dancing, so he drove off again to who-knows where and I went to bed.
PS- If you happen to visit Thakek, I highly recommend the Travel Lodge. About 5K from the bus station and 2K from old town, it's in a decent location and has a kind staff, great atmosphere, good caving and trekking opportunities, and the $2 dorm accomodations offer a great chance to meet up and coordinate trips with fellow travelers. The food portions are rather small and a bit pricey, but the fruit plate is huge and delicious!
