Wandering in Laos | Bangkok Post: travel

Outside the north-eastern town of Mukdahan, Friendship Bridge Two reaches across the wide, muddy Mekong to the provincial capital of Savannakhet in central Laos, linking the busy highways of the Kingdom to those of the People's Democratic Republic. In Thailand people drive on the left, and in Laos they drive on the right, and there are many other points of difference _ most obviously, the pace of life.

Somnolent Savannakhet, now officially renamed after the late communist leader Kaysone Phomvihanh, sprawls along the banks of the Mekong. Its crumbling colonial villas and shophouses populate a flat landscape, punctuated by the spires of the Buddhist temples. Imagine Luang Prabang without the forested mountains, the royal palace or the smartly-renovated villas. Rain falls steadily and Talad Savanxai, the town's major produce market, becomes a sea of striped beach umbrellas. Diversions begin to seem few and far between.

One morning I chance upon Boun Hor Khao Salak, a Buddhist festival. Hundreds of people have dressed in their best, the women and children sitting or kneeling on mats throughout the grounds of Wat Sainyamungkhun. After prayers the men form into a long, snaking line through which the saffron-robed monks will pass, gathering so many offerings that others follow with laundry baskets to gather them up. Then the monks begin to move between the long lines of women, still collecting. Through the intervention of the monkhood, these offerings, I learn, will pass to deceased relatives. As darkness falls, people will again gather to light candles.