Boun Khao Padabdin

Festival Location: Vientiane, Laos

Festival Type(s): Traditional Festivals, Religious Events, Cultural Festivals

Boun Khao Padabdin

By: © Sarah Warwick 2009

The monk is up a ladder hanging bunting. "What's the bunting for?" I ask. He explains that August 20th is Boun Khao Padabdin, the day when Laotians honour their ancestors and bring offerings to the temple. "Come along," he says.

Tomorrow dawns and for a second I think I must be in a Muslim country as a call to prayer in a foriegn tongue fills the still guesthouse air. Then I remember the festival and scurry across to the local wat (Buddhist temple), along with dozens of other people, as it turns out.

I've never seen a Buddhist temple so busy: it's bustling with people and colour. Aside from the bunting, there are lots of flowers and a long table has been set up with two rows of metal bowls.

In front of the table, in the temple's main pagoda, sit at least 50 people holding big silver offering bowls stuffed with food and money. The communicants bow their heads and hold their hands together in a prayer wai, as an unseen monk leads the prayers over a tannoy.

This chanting joins a cacophony of other morning noises: traffic, animals, children shouting from the temple school and the hurry of more people arriving in a steady stream.

I notice that all those who come for the festival wear a ceremonial multi-coloured silk sash over their left shoulder. Most of the offerers are women; some wear full traditional dress, others just a smart blouse and skirt or, in the case of men, trousers and a shirt.

Some of them are parents who drop their children off at the temple school before going to pray and make their offerings. I like the way their morning errands thus include both the living family and the dead, the mundane and the sacred.

My happy contemplation is suddenly broken as the prayer chanting stops. People uncurl themselves from the floor, and move to the left hand end of the long table outside. Much like to a reception committee at a western wedding, they present themselves at each bowl in turn, dropping a small amount of food or money as they go. Fruit, chocolate bars, balls of sticky rice, money in small denominations (usually 1,000-2,000 Kip notes (about 7-14 British pence)), flowers or small candles, soon each bowl is full to overflowing.

Each offering is briefly held to their forehead before being given. When they come to the end of the line they bow low and touch their empty bowls to their head before moving away.

After the offerings have been given to the dead ancestors, many people have to leave to go to work. I see one man, who is wearing jeans and a t-shirt under his sash, simply drop his offering bowl into his bike basket, don his helmet and ride away. "How very casual, how very Laos," I think.

Others venture back into the temple for more prayer, lighting candles or incense in their bowls, and having a moment's quiet reflection for their dead relatives.

I wait and watch until I see the monks begin to pack up the offerings. There are a phenomenal amount of them: a literal cornucopia.

I am wondering what they will do with them - give them to the poor perhaps - when I spot the monk who invited me to the festival and ask him. "They are offered in alms for the monks," he says to me, and I am impressed, both by his English, and by the practical possibilities of religion.

This festival allows the community to remember their dead; recognises and rewards the local monk community (who in Laos are all boys in their late teens); and allows people to feel good about themselves - and all before breakfast.

Its made me feel pretty good too. I say a prayer for my own unremembered ancestors, wave goodbye to 'my monk' and slope away with a smile.

by Sarah Warwick