Luang Brabang, Laos Celebrates the End of Monsoon Season — in driving rain

Fire Boat Festival in Laos

In one of the nicest places I’ve ever visited, Luang Prabang, Laos, the October full moon marked the end of the seasonal monsoon.  The folks pour out into the streets and into the Mekong and Nam Kahn rivers to let the spirits free.

Hundreds of foreign tourists were among the thousands watching the parade of “fire boats” that followed the races in Luang Prabang. The nighttime event is a highlight of the three-day race weekend: Handcrafted bamboo boats adorned with fruit, candles and paper serpents are carried to a Buddhist temple and then floated on the nearby Mekong as a way of honoring ancestors and empowering the Naga, a serpent like deity in Buddhist and Hindu mythology.  NY Times

Individual villages and temples create large elaborate boats using bamboo, coloured paper, leaves, flowers and candles which they then light up and carry along the main street in a large candlelit procession down to Wat Xieng Thong, where they are displayed and judged before being taken down the steps of the temple to the Mekong river and released downstream. Falang Brabang