Awk Phansaa
Laos, October, 2000
This celebrates the end of the three-month rains retreat. Monks are allowed to leave the monasteries to travel and are presented with robes, alms bowls and other requisites of the renunciative life. On the eve of Awk Phansaa many people fashion small banana-leaf boats carrying candles, incense and other offerings, and float them in rivers, a custom know as Lai Hua Fai, similar to Loy Krathong in Thailand.

Pi Mai
Luang Prabang, April
The lunar new year begins in mid-April and practically the entire country comes to a halt and celebrates. Houses are cleaned, people put on new clothes and Buddha images are washed with lustral water. In the wats, offerings of fruit and flowers are made at various altars and votive mounds of sand or stone are fashioned in the courtyards. Later the citizens ake to the streets and douse one another with water, which is an appropriate activity as April is usually the hottest month of the year. This festival is particularly picturesque in Luang Prabang, where it includes elephant processions.

Vietnamese Tet & Chinese New Year
Vientiane, Pakse and Savannakhet, February, 2000
This is celebrated in Vientiane, Pakse and Savannakhet with parties, deafening nonstop fireworks and visits to Vietnamese and Chinese temples. Chinese and Vietnamese-run business usually close for three days.

Magha Puja
Vientiane, February, 2000
Magha Puja also known as Makkha Bu-saa, or full moon. This commemorates a speech given by the buddha to 1,250 enlightened monks who came to hear him without prior summons. In the talk, the Buddha laid down the first monastic regulations and predicted his own death. Chanting and offerings mark the festival, culminating in the candlelit circumambulation of wats throughout the country.

Boun Khoun Khao
Laos, March, 2000
A local harvest festival celebrated around local wats,also known as temples.

Boun Pimai
Laos, April, 2000
This is to celebrate Lao New Year. The first month of the Lao New Year is actually December but festivities are delayed until April when days are longer than nights. The festival also serves to invite the rains. Pimai is one of the most important annual festivals, particularly in Luang Prabang. The small stupas of sand, decorated with streamers, in wat compounds are symbolic requests for health and happiness over the next year. It is celebrated with traditional Lao folk singing (mor lam) and the circle dance (ramwong). There is usually a 3-day holiday. Similar festivals are celebrated in Thailand, Cambodia and Burma.

Bun Pha Wet
Laos, April, 2000
This is a temple-center festival in which the jataka or birth-tale of Prince Vestsantara, the Buddha's penultimate life, is recited. This is also a favoured time for Lao males to be ordained into the monkhood. The scheduling of Bun Pha Wet is staggered so that it is held on different days in different villages. This is so that relatives and friends living in different villages can invite one another to their respective celebrations.

Boun Bang Fai
Laos, May, 2000
The rocket festival is a Buddhist rain-making festival. Large bamboo rockets are built and decorated by monks and carried in procession before being blasted skywards. The higher a rocket goes, the bigger its builder's ego gets. Designers of failed rockets are thrown in the mud. The festival lasts up to 2 days.