Happy Lao New Year! We got up at our usual time and ate fruit and yogurt that we bought the night before and lounged in our a/c room watching a movie. What luxury!

Later we went out to find more snacks to pack on our bikes for the days ahead: the usual nuts, salty crunchy snacks, baguettes, and the elusive Nutella or peanut butter. We usually buy fresh fruit along the way, and eat lunch and dinner when we arrive at our destination. The town was quiet and slowly shuffling arounds when we found an internet cafe and spent a bit of time emailing. But when we came out we found that people were setting up hoses and buckets on the sidewalks in front of their homes or businesses and people were slowly gathering with a festive excitement building. As people on motos went by, some were throwing water on them and laughing. It was beginning! Dave took a couple of pictures from a distance, but quickly found that having electronics in this atmosphere was simply not going to work. We walked back to the guest house to deposit the camera and got our bikes.

When we came back there were even more people gathering, and in that amount of time there were twice the number of places with buckets, hoses and people gathered. Water was flying everywhere and cheers were going up all down the main street. We watched for a short while, then decided to cruise our bikes down main street and participate. It was already getting pretty hot and that water looked cool.

It took not time at all before we were completely soaked. Before hitting the end of the main street we were soaked five times over, head to toe, and it seemed to really please the locals to douse a couple of foreigners on bikes. Some of them would motion for us to slow down so they could pour a small bucket down our backs, others simply threw bucketfuls at us, while some were developing good aim with super-soaker water guns. Everyone was laughing, music was playing from huge speakers out of businesses along each block, people were dancing, and everyone was soaked. There were pickups filled in the back with people who were inviting water to be thrown and who were also throwing water from huge buckets. Motos were packed with people cruising up and down the long street back and forth. After a while the street seemed to clear a bit, and a parade led by a truck with a big Buddha statue came by, preceded by kids playing drums and followed by groups of people in traditional costumes. After the parade went by the water started flying again. We spent the afternoon getting soaked, and when we were cruising on our bikes we got invited to stay with one group of locals and participate in the water throwing. After a while we wandered back to the Seven Restaurant, where other Westerners had a hose and buckets out front, and we got in on the action there as well. It was hilariously fun. The party went on long after we left, but we had to get our dinner and showers and wash clothes so they could dry overnight and get packed up so we could leave early in the morning. Bike touring in a hot climate does not encourage late-night partying. We were in bed at 8:00, listening to the sounds of the sky opening up and rain pouring down hard. It’s a good sound, and we knew it would be a cooler morning.