It has been an amazingly fun and exhausting day today. We started our New Year by eating breakfast at our guesthouse's restaurant on the river. After walking around town a bit (and dodging kids throwing water) we headed up the hill to where Ted and Than were staying at the Pan Sea hotel.
The Pan Sea Hotel sits on a beautiful location overlooking the back side of Luang Prabang (if you consider the Mekong to be the "front side"). The infinity pool and the rooms are beautiful as well. But are they worth the US$200 price? I don't think so. I'll take my US$15 guesthouse on the river, thank you. Not to mention, the hotel charged Piyawat and me US$10 for laying out at their pool with registered guests. Just plain tacky, in my opinion.
In any case, we eventually headed back to the downtown area to "Play Songkran". Basically the idea is to splash everyone who walks by or drives by with ice cold water. When no one is driving by, then you just turn to your friend next to you and pour a big bucket of water over his head. Add freely flowing Beer Lao and you have perfect low-tech fun. Needless to say, you get very wet, very quickly.
After a few hours, we needed to take a break, so the four of us took a boat across the river. We wandered through the small village watching the festivities. At one point we sat down on a tiny bench underneath a wooden house to eat fresh spring rolls and a solid dried rice pudding inside lettuce leaves.
Eventually we made it back over the river to our guesthouse where the party was still going strong. Only the setting sun slowed down the revelers. At dinner (on the river again) we sat and relaxed and watched lightning from an approaching storm light up the mountains across the river. From the sounds of it, nature will have her own "water splashing" festival tonight.
