some naga luring

The end of Buddhist lent means many things - an end to the rainy season, the traditional time for monks to come back out of the temples they have been meditating within, and boat racing festival.  The week long build-up and three day festival is steeped in myth - it was once explicitly held to lure Naga, the hallowed serpent dragon, out from the drying rice paddies back to the Mekong. 

These days, it is a time for villagers from the nearby provinces to travel in throngs to the riverfront of Vientiane, where temporary food stalls and vendors set up mats and booths and scaffolding to sell and yell about their items.

Fourty person dragon boats, made of a single sacred tree and blessed with colorful adornments, race down the Mekong. The synchronized paddling and counting is critiqued by the beer-drenched, sticky rice-engorging fans on the shore.