Photo Funday: April 19

It was a week of festivals and holidays around the globe so check out these amazing festival shots, Nicole’s from Laos are especially stunning…enjoy:

April O’Connell-Cole/Tour Consultant/Truckee, California

Sunday was Easter so we went to my mom’s house to have Easter Brunch and hunt Easter eggs. Gavin soon realized that the plastic eggs have candy in them so he insisted that the real eggs were for Grandma and the plastic eggs were for Gavin. It made me laugh.

Kwanchanok “Jeab” Meechai/Thailand Director/Bangkok, Thailand

Last night the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency the department store. I was at KhaoSan road to visit the temple and join the party. Some road the people had to avoid and some of the bus is not running. Then me and my friends take the boat to Silom and many people having fun!

Nicole Long/Laos Director/Luang Prabang, Laos

I was lucky enough to celebrate the New Years Laos style, which is called Pi Mai. Many festivities and traditions are jammed packed into three days. There is a lot of dancing and water fights all over town as well as a parade that revels Miss Lao New Year and the annual cleansing of the sacred Buddha called Prabang. I will let the pictures speak for themselves…

The parade
These are some typical sights you would see in the Laos New Years parade. First are the ancestral spirits of Luang Prabang Pou Nheu, Nha Nheu and their pet lion Sing Keo Sing Khon. You will also see many carrying around horoscope banners that they will place in their sand stupas. The finale of the parade is the newly crowned Miss Lao New Year who rides a top a giant animal on a float smiling and sitting as still as she can for hours in the heat.

Traditions
Just about everyone packs themselves on an island in the middle of the Mekong River to build a sand stupa. On this island is a lot of eating, drinking and dancing as well as scary rocket launching. Then in the evening many young Laos students descend from the top of Mt. Phousi carrying lanterns and singing traditional Laos songs. The end of the celebration would not be complete with out pouring floral spring water on the Prabang (this statue is only exposed to the public once a year).

Water fighting
Lao New Year isn’t complete without three days of water fights. People stay in front of their homes or businesses in funny costumes and drench passersby. Many retaliate by driving around town in trucks with barrels of water and pots with greasy bottoms (which they lovingly smear all over your face). And if the water and grease aren’t enough you might get a face full of white flour. Again, all of this is great fun, but by the end you feel like you need a spa vacation!