The New Head of the Village

On Wednesday we arrived in Luang Prabang. For those that don't know it is one of the largest towns in Laos and is a World heritage city because of the many temples and colonial buildings. We have been here twice before both times on our first trip. We decided to stay in Nok Noy guest house where we had stayed before. The family that run the guest house are really friendly and welcoming. We arrived late in the afternoon so headed straight out for a wander and some food. We noticed on our way out that there was a huge speaker stack being built in the lane way so we figured that there was going to be a big party. On returning from dinner we found the lane way full of tables, chairs and people eating and drinking and someone talking through the huge speakers. We tried to discreetly walk past not wanting to intrude but we were called over by someone at a table. It turned out to be Tui (the manager of the guest house) he got us seats and poured us all beers with ice (thats the done thing here). I asked him what was going on and he said that every three years the village head man changes and today was that day. I got the idea that on the same day the prime minister and everyone else in high positions of power change as well (I could be wrong).

Soon enough the next song started and half the crowd stood up and went down next to the speakers to dance. Katie was first to be asked and to my surprise she jumped straight up and went to dance. Annie and I soon followed and soon found that there was a particular way to dance. The crowd made a circle with the men on the inside and women on the outside. The circle moved very slowly anticlockwise while everyone slowly bopped moving their hands slowly in front of them. It was all very funny for us and funny for the locals seeing the farang try and dance.

It turned out that the band was Tui's brothers band and Tui and his crazy partying dad Mr Som Phone, sang songs as well. The song finished and we all said Cop jai (thank you) and did the little hand together praying thing then all sat down again. As soon as we were seated we had fresh full cups of beer and ice and people topping them up after every sip. Soon enough a new song started and we were up again. We had to be careful of the drinking as we could have got quite drunk. The locals seemed to be drinking much slower than they were getting us to drink so we just kept full glasses for a while. There was one guy who kept trying to get us to scull our drinks even though he wasn't sculling his. I don't know if he was just being friendly or if he wanted to see the farang get drunk. After a couple of hours we made a quiet exit before the party turned messy. It was heaps of fun even if we did feel silly trying to do the Lao dances.