Thursday, April 13, 2006

now's the time for us to say...

sabaidee pii mai!

mardi gras ain't got nothin on Lao new year. (mardi gras they throw beads off of floats slowly moving by; Lao new year they throw water from fast moving vehicles... i call it drive-by dousing. just don't walk down the street in your "dry-clean only" sweater. besides, it really is too hot for a sweater.
well, we have spent the last two days alternating between Buddhist ceremonies commemorating the new year to all-out water fights. it gets kinda out of control, and the police in america would never allow it. for example: some of the kids put colored water (that permanently stains your clothes) in little baggies, and then they chuck them at me with the force of a little league pitcher. (being big and white, i make an easy target.) well, all this would be ok if they weren't in the back of a fast moving truck while i was in the back of another fast moving truck when the baggy hit me and exploded. (we were driving around the town with two big barrels of water, throwing water at people as we passed.)

i have welts on my body from where the i got hit. one well aimed baggy hit my hand, crushing the plastic cup full of water i was about to throw in their direction. so after the third welting (got two on my chest, one on my arm... when they hit my hand it didn't leave a mark) i decided to stay down when we passed another truck, and i only came up to throw water on the motorcyclists we passed. and then we ran out of water altogether, and so i could only sit there and wait to get pelted until our driver got us back to the house. powder and lipstic are also favorites for putting on people. and i got hit with muddy water once, and another truck had little baggies filled with BEER LAO but that is considered poor form... not a good way to celebrate the new year. but for a little more humor - check out the BEER LAO website...
http://www.beer-lao.com/

that initial question "are you of legal drinking age" is interesting considering there are seemingly no prohibitions on underage drinking here. (but i guess there aren't many in the usa either) but that is for another type of blog... at this point i will close with: happy new year

2 comments:

jacob said...

I got your message - sorry fell asleep with the phone on vibrate. I will bring the stuff - even the requested items for Kham. You are right, you can never be too safe!

You defintely need to check out the quiz on the beer lao website. It's fun and definitely "educational."

See you on Monday! I hope!

Anonymous said...

Dude!!! I want one (or more) of those bracelets!!!!!!!! Pretty Please?????????? Hee Hee :o)

xoxo