Happy New Year!!!

It has been lots of partying here in Luang Prabang. Out on the streets people have been dumping water on one another and riding around on the back of utes while really loud music plays in the backround. We have been squirting everyone with our two water pistols and having a blast. Some people also smear black charcoal or rice flour on your face. There have been the tradional buddist celebrations for the Laos new year. There have been parades of monks and this morning there was a procession to a Wat. At the Wat people gave gifts of banana leaf crafts, candles and flower arrangments. They also tipped holy water down a dragon which funneled it over a buddist statue to represent cleansing. The celebrations don"t stop there. Last night the people of our guest house invited us to be part of a traditional ceremony for good luck where they tied string around your wrist and they gave everyone a gift of money.One of the pictures is the eldest (108 years old) blessing William. They also invited us to dinner as we celebrated our host's, sister's birthday.

On thursday we all took a tuk tuk up to a national park with a water fall and swimming areas. A tuk tuk (took took) is a taxi but not your average one. It is usually a motorbike or ute with a cage sort of thing on the back with two bench seats where you sit. It has no seatbelts and if you have big bags they go on the roof. There are no doors so you can fall out the back if you aren"t careful. On the way to the waterfall we passed lots of people with buckets of water so buy the time we reached the falls everyone was soaked.

The falls are in a regional park which also has a bear rescue centre where there were Asian Moon bears. There were in big enclosures with plenty on logs and things to climb on. The rescue center helped protect bears from poaching and bile farming. Bile is used to treat things like heart and lung disease and headaches. To get bile the bear is kept in a cage and bile is extracted from the gore bladder. The limestone waterfall was crowded with lots of people all on holiday. We then went to a smaller waterfall where we swing in or jump off the falls. People were amazed when Johanna and Madeleine used the swing and they all clapped and cheered. All down the stream there were terraces and pools. The water was cold but refreshing. After many hours of swimming we got drenched again as we drove back to the guest house.