Attraversiamo

Holiday shopping in Vientienne. My friend wanted new shoes and a backpack so we went to this "mall". My shopping was for Listerine or a local equivalent.

My neighborhood wat.

I am often influenced by books that I read and I am now reading (for the second time) "Eat, Pray, Love" by Eliazabeth Gilbert which I found in a book swap at a hotel or guesthouse somewhere along my way recently. It is definitely an Oprah type book in case anyone is interested in entertaining light reading, but I mention the book because I take today's title from the "Eat" portion of the book. In the "Eat" third of the book Elizabeth Gilbert spends several months in Italy enjoying the food and studying Italian, a language which she always wanted to learn. Her favorite word was "attraversiamo" which translates into English as "crossing over" as in crossing over the street or in a more metaphorical sense crossing from one state of affairs to another. Yesterday I crossed over the Mekong River from Thailand to Laos, hence commencing a new episode of my life. I am completely unsure of what to expect here, but hopeful of a favorable experience.

On 13 April the Lao-Thai holiday celebrating the new year begins. The year here is 2555, based upon the birth of Buddha, who preceded Jesus by 543 years, and the new year here coincides with Buddha's birthday. Like in Chang Mai, Thailand, was a few years ago, this will be a festive wet time with everyone slinging, throwing, shooting water at everyone else. To survive best I hope to keep my eyes and mouth always closed at moment of impact. Other than that I will just accept the fact that I will be soaked if I step outside. It is very hot here and the water at least feels cool.

I happily reconnected with a friend from a previous trip to Laos yesterday and he invited me to celebrate the new year together. Among other activities he said we will visit 5 or 7 or 9 temples (must be an odd number) and pour water over the Buddha statue for good luck in the coming year. Getting to participate with a local absolutely makes an experience like this far more interesting since I can ask about the significance of the activities.

For example, I wanted to know why all the water at this time, and here is the explanation I get. It seems that there was a king in ancient history who made a bet with the wisest man of his village, the wager being that the king would cut off his head if he lost the bet. Talk about going all in on a bet! Well, of course the king lost the bet, so he arranged that his head be stored in a nearby cave and that his seven daughters would wash his severed head once a year with holy water. I think you can put the rest of the story together. Water poured over the Buddha statue is holy water and throwing water at everyone on the street is a sort of blessing, if you can believe that. I am pretty sure that several of you who read this would not take being assaulted with a gallon of water as a blessing but more like a reason to cuss whoever had such audacity.

Well, I will try to have a few pictures of the celebration to share with you here. This will be my third new year in 4 months: January 1, Tet and now Pi Mai. At risk of sounding repetitive, "Happy New Year!"