These the pictures from the elephant festival we visited with Steve & Caroline (a couple we met in the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia & again in Ayutthaya, Thailand. They are on a 9 monther RTW, having got married in Fiji).
The festival involved (we were told 100 elephants), but think there was more like 70. The whole 2 days combined both our worst & our best experiences to date!
We set off midday on the 13th, on a booked tour for the 2 days, with both myself & Steve not being well, having had bad tummies during the night & the morning. The journey was due to take 4 hours & both felt OK to manage it rather than miss the opportunity of going to an elephant festival. On the journey we both felt worse as the road 40Km outside Luang Perbang became rough track. By the time we arrived Gill was also feeling sick!
We arrived in Xiayabouly around 4.30pm & it then took another 4 hours for the tour company we were travelling with to sort out our homestay (basically living with the locals in their house). In our case we had a double bed & some mattresses on the floor. Toilet facilities very basic & no shower facilities. The family at the house were really helpful as both Steve & Gill needed to go straight to bed & they rigged mosquito nets around the beds. Caroline & I ventured into the festival to eat & scout. Found a restaurant where there was no English spoken & no English menu so they went out into the street to find someone who could translate the menu of us.
During the night there must have been another 30 people coming in all hours sleeping in some small room upstairs, so very noisy. We then had the festival tanoy blasting messages from about 5am onwards!! We awoke to have all these little faces watching us through the mosquito net, so bit of a challenge to get dressed.
I won't describe the 2 days festival, as will let the pictures speak for themselves (also the internet here is very slow. Took 3 hours just to upload those I've included & was unable to turn any of the portrait pictures around).
During the festival Steve remained unwell but joined us on day one, whilst Gill stayed in bed. The homestay rigged up a privacy net for her. She joined us later in the afternoon. On the 2nd day we were all able to enjoy the festival although Steve still didn't feel right. I have included the picture of the Xang Lane motorscooter prize just to remind Caroline how disappointed she was she didn't win it, as Steve & her planned to cross into Vietnam on it!
Our departing gesture to the homestay was to buy 10 helium balloons for the children as a thankyou. We had no idea how many cghildren there were in the house & should probably bought twice as many. Sadly my favourite was Spiderman & the little chap standing on the tortoise balloon let go as soon as it was handed to him & so headed skywards. He was given given another by one of the other children. We were then invited to join the family in a number of drinking rounds in sampling their homemade Laos Laos (the local spirit). Gill's face was a picture on every round(but most of them were taken in portrait so unable to upload them). Wasn't her favourite tipple!
Our return journey was very eventful. We left the festival at4pm & got to the ferry crossing around 5.30pm , but due the huge queue of traffic we didn't cross until 12.30am & did not get back to Luang Prabang until 3.30am. Had to spend the 6 hours in the little covering next to the ferry - thankfully they still had a supply of beer which kept us going.
Great event & the children's faces with the balloons & Gill's face with the Laos Laos will live in my memory for years.
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