60km bike ride and dragon boat festival

My housemates had been for some long bike rides recently and were going to cycle to a dragon boat festival some 30kms away. I decided to join them. It was one day after I returned from India and it made me appreciate Laos again. The path along the Mekong river was beautiful. There were nice houses, and fisheries in the river. All the children all yelled out ‘hello’ because we look like foreigners- my housemates in particular. There were rice paddies and gorgeous shiny new temples along the way.

We reached the dragon boat festival over an hour later. It was a huge party- not what I expected at all! There was a stage with huge speakers with a band and people out on the dance floor. Many people were already drunk at 2pm. We were invited to sit down with some Lao people, but I refused drinks. There was Lao party food out- popcorn, sticky rice with banana, ice blocks and roast meat. There was a bit of dragon boating going on. It looks really impressive as there are around 50 people in each boat. The boat goes really fast.

The ride home was also good, but I got quite tired and hungry for about the last 5kms. We saw a person draining the blood out of freshly killed duck’s neck while two of his mates looked on. People like eating raw duck’s blood in larp. Not such a good idea in these times of bird flu! Some people on motorbikes road beside my housemates for several kilometres just to talk to them and invited us to a dinner- the people here are so friendly.