April 18 How drunk can you get?

My first splash of Boun Pii Mai (Lao New Year) comes at me through the open
windows of my bus to Luang Prabang. Children squeal in laughter as they
stand on the side of the road with hoses and pails and toss water at any
vehicle passing by. Thoughts of Vietnamese swindles and waiting in the
sweltering heat on a bus to Vientiane are slipping away. The day is
gorgeous, the scenery stunning and soon I’ll be in the New Year party
capital of Laos.

Pii Mai actually takes place this year on Tuesday, April 13. But for days
before the New Year, water fights break out all over the country as the sins
of the old year are cleansed away. The best of these happen in Luang
Prabang. Since I had visited here last month, I knew of a guest house in
which to stay and contacted them to make sure I could get a room. Within a
week of New Year, guesthouses start filling up and by Monday, people are
sleeping on the floor.

Once settled in, I head out to find a good water pistol. I’m thinking,
ridiculously, of the little gun-sized toys I played with as a child. The
pistol vendor just laughs at me and pulls out the Water Canon Mega Supreme
Neutralizer 1800. It’s bigger than a small horse. Forgetting that water
weighs a ton per cubic inch, I drop $4 for the weapons-of-mass-destruction-sized firearm. I am ready, I think, naively. The next morning, I fill up the water gun and try to lift it. I throw my back out. I look around for a wheel barrow in which to haul the damn gun.
Nothing around. Not wanting to be outdone by the little kids I see running
around with even bigger pistols, I head out to find my first victim. I see a
few kids down the road squirting water tentatively at one another. I pretend
to sneak up on them and, when a few feet from them, yell, “Pii Mai Lau,” and
start squirting.

They are a decoy. Behind me, two older brothers carrying buckets the size of
water tanks come out and I hear the sploosh sploosh too late. In one swoop,
I am drenched. Head to toe. I feebly get a few squirts out before I see them
run back to a hose to fill up again. I am forced to retreat.

Knowing, however, that I can’t get any wetter, I am filled with bravado and
run through the streets braving bucket after bucket, water hoses, squirt
guns of all sizes and even the odd water balloon that descends from a guest
house (no doubt the work of foreigners). And the onslaught doesn’t only come
from a few people at a time; I hear there is a movie in the works called The
Gangs of Luang Prabang. Has a nice ring to it. The story follows groups of
teenage boys as they set up what we call in North America “car washes”. Only
they don’t ask any money for these. The victims are anything moving down the
street. But those of choice are teenage girls on motorbikes, sitting so
prim, often dressed for school, carrying school books and maybe an umbrella
to protect them from the sun. To the sound of hands beating on pails, the
gang leader blows a whistle (really, this is what happens) and motions for
the girls to stop. At which point 10 guys ambush the women, drenching them,
their bags and their motorbike, before allowing them to continue.

Nor do the attacks only come from those on the street. There are trucks that
ply the streets and alleys with huge stores of water in the back and men,
adult men, dipping small pails in and tossing them on unsuspecting
by-standers. The only people who seem to be exempt from irrigation are men
in business-like looking suits, old ladies, and women with stern looks on
their faces, which seem to be all the women over 30 in Luang Prabang this
time of year.

This continues well into the next day but, being Tuesday and the actual day
of Pii Mai, there are also celebrations of a different sort. Thousands of
people come out dressed like they’re off to the temple to walk along the
main street, Chau Fa Ngum Road, which has been turned into a huge market.
Vendors sell flowers for later rituals, birds in colorful little bamboo
cages that will be released for good luck and baskets made of banana leaves,
filled with marigolds and incense sticks. But you’ll also find silk scarves,
wooden decorative moldings, underwear, food, toys, hats, balloons and, of
course, water pistols.

After the see-and-be-seen show, thousands head across the Mekong to a little
sand bar where families build sand stupas near the water, decorating them to
welcome the new year. Guys walk around with bags of flour they throw on
everyone. No one knows why this ritual started but it seems to be one of
those that is just fun because it’s yucky and forces you into the river to
get drenched again and clean off. After stupa-building, everyone heads to
beer tents to drink (unfortunately warm) beer, get pissed and then dance.
The whole scene seems biblical, like a cross between Sodom and Gemora and
Woodstock.

The next day, I’m invited by Keo, one of the guys who runs the guest house
at which I’m staying, to go with him to visit his family about two hours
down river, in a village only accessible by boat. I anticipate serenity . I
am met with drunken decadence. It seems Pii Mai is also the time of drinking
Lao Lao, a home-made, rice-based whiskey that will put hair on the chest of
anyone within a mile of whoever drinks it. It is foul. And people in this
village make it in their back yards.

As soon as we get to Keo’s house, he goes off to find his family and leaves
me in the inebriated hands of five of his friends, who seem absolutely
tickled to find a sober person in their midst who they can now corrupt; and
a foreigner at that. I sit down and am immediately offered shot after shot
of Lao Lao. And these guys don’t have shot glasses. A shot is one of those
two-fingered deals at the bottom of a tumbler, with the two fingers held
vertically. Within half an hour, I am shitfaced. But for some strange
reason, I don’t get sick, as I would if I drank as much of any other
alcohol. In fact, we continue to drink shot after shot for another hour and
a half. We sing songs. We dance. One of the women tries to grab my breast.
I’m not really sure about this ritual either, but Keo, who’s English is
limited, doesn’t seem to know anything about it. We try to talk to one
another, without making any sense whatsoever. At some point, I lapse into
French, because it seems appropriate, much to the delight of my guests.

The next morning, after a particularly sound sleep, it’s up at 4:30 for the
solemn part of the New Year. Men put on their best slacks and women dress in
sparkly, ankle-length skirts with sashes across our bodies and we head to
the local temple. Each person has a decorative bowl with small money or rice
offerings for the monks, who walk slowly along the seated line of people
collecting the gifts. The morning ritual is in stark contrast to the
debauchery of the previous evening. It’s hard to believe these are the same
people who tried to hip bump be through a thatched wall.

After the offerings to the monks, it’s time for Basi ceremonies. This is
where family and friends go from home to home in the village and tie strings
around each others’ wrists as they utter incantations for good luck. As a
visitor, I am treated in like fashion and soon my wrists are covered with
dozens of string bracelets. In each house we are treated to soup, rice and
other types of food. The Basi ceremonies usually last until mid-morning and
then the drinking starts again. The entire village goes off any wagon it
might have stumbled onto and gallon-jug after gallon-jug comes out of
hiding. Little cassette walkmans are wired up to huge, 70s-style speakers
and music blasts from one household and another, competing against each
other, trying to get people to come there to party. Every where I walk, I am
entreated to come in and dance and drink but, after the previous night’s
binge, I can’t even stand the smell of the Lao Lao.

By late afternoon, Keo, who did not drink the night before, has gotten
hammered, slept it off and is getting pissed again. But he’s had enough and
so have I. We find a boat to take us back to Luang Prabang and head for
home.