The funny thing that happened that didn't get mentioned in that story though is that this dude Piya, who I met on the side of the road, ended up being a complete nutter. He was a boat driver and on the day I met him, it was Nam Boon Bong Fai, or the Laos Festival of Light. During this fest, which is a lot like the Thai Loy Kratong, they have long tail boat races during the day and fireworks and stuff at night. He offered to take me to hang out with some friends and watch the races. He seemed cool, so I went.We approached the muddy banks of the Mekong and I could see people going crazy at a distance, cheering as the boats raced each other not far from the edge of land. People were singing and dancing and banging anything they had, from metal garbage cans to plastic tubs to the long tail boats themselves.
Once you got away from the river and got into the jungle, it was seriously like a hill tribe rave. There were HUGE soundsystems everywhere jamming some music that sounded like Thai luk thung, but my new friend Piya assured me it was not--this was the music of the Laos hilltribe called the Kaa Muu (i'm probably spelling that wrong). Anyway, it was loud, sounded vauguely like reggae with accordions and wind pipes and stuff, and they had 2 MCs shouting out and singing.After dancing for a while and eating fried chicken feet (ugggh...) we went to Piya's brother-in-law's house. We sat at a table and the people there could speak Thai so we were chatting a bit. They got some food for us and this woman was passing around shots of lao lao, or khao lao--in other words, Laos moonshine. One shot of this stuff could put you out, but this lady just kept passing it around and around and around...man these people were hammered. I stopped and just politely refused after a while, but it was crazy.
Eventually Piya brought me back to Luang Prabang and I stumbled off to my hotel. It was a good time and I feel lucky having had the dumb luck to be in town for such a cool festival.
