That Luang Festival

This week was a holiday of sorts in Laos. The That Luang festival here in Vientiane. That Luang is a Buddhist temple, or stupa which is a place where someone important is buried. It is rumored that somewhere in the big stupa is a part of the Buddha. It could be considered the Mecca for Lao Buddhists. This time of the year many people from all over Laos come to Vientiane for a big festival where apparently, they buy things, get blessings from the monks, and walk around the stupa three times.

This week the traffic was crazy!!! I will never forget thinking “wow, this is not Vientiane” I felt a little like Dorothy. Ordinarily Vientiane is not such a crowded city. My first experience at the festival was at a concert that one of my friend’s friends was singing in. Stacy (my roommate) and I were waiting for the rest of our group and actually got followed by a student at the university I am teaching at, who proceeded to hit on us. That was… interesting. The concert was great.

The next day I went with a friend to the temple. My friend is not a Buddhist. She told me all about how many Lao people do this every year to gain merit. We had fun going there, she made about 5 u-turns before she finally parked my motorbike. Then when we walked a little further she changed her mind and decided that she would move the bike and park somewhere else. Also on the way, we were headed there with some of her friends, which I was hoping to get to know, but we lost them in the traffic. It was really fun to spend some time with her and meet some of her other friends that we saw there. They all had to do an interview with a foreigner as an assignment, so I helped some of them introduce themselves, in general, Lao people are so shy!! It was so interesting getting to experience a little Lao Buddhist culture. When we were in the festival, it was seriously crowded at times I just stood there, because I have nowhere to go. My friend and I ate, and she changed her mind about a couple more things, I changed into my Lao skirt from pants out in public and then back into pants (which by the way is acceptable here) and we had a great time. I was so glad I could spend this time with her!