Gilbody and Deacon's Joint Adventure: November 2008

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Loygatong Festival

Loygatong is an annual festival that takes place all over Thailand during the Full Moon of November. Everyone is out to celebrate it the preceedings take place for about a week or 2 solid.

Every night down our road since we got back from Lao we could hear Fireworks see the occasional Lantern and general partying going on.

The Peak of the event is the last day of the full moon, we went to a temple with the open room family to set off a few lanterns.

Loygatong is a festival in which Buddist people pay respect to the Gods of different elements, so we headed down to the water and set off fire lanterns.

Were still not really sure why there were so many statues of Cock's around, but apparently the king used to like cock fighting so that might be the reason?

The king himself

3 massive cocks?

Beautiful Lilies on the water.

Before setting off the lanterns you have to light the bottom and wait for the paper lantern to fill up with hot air.

It's really fun and everyone gets involved.

One of the Lanterns didn't quite make it off the ground but the other two flew off wonderfully.

Friends from the Preservation club.

Turtle in a bag (don't worry we set him free)

Fireworks everywhere.

Can you spot 'The Defiant Cock'

We ended the night with one of these delicious beverages, icy syrupy treat.

Peace

Deac&Gilb xx

Well its been a while (Laos)

We undertook another magical visa run trip, this time taking our two heros to Laos.

Laos is a crazy place possibly because it was once run by the French. . . . But the French did leave a few good things behind, like baguettes :)

In the que to leave Thailand

We once again were illegal and had to pay another fine, this is the room where the magic happens.

P'Jun & P'Joke Drove the whole way! and it was pretty far about an 8 hour journey through time and space.

Our first Tuk tuk ride since being in S.E Asia, was a pleasant experience.

A small street market where we grabbed a quick drink in a bag again.

Deacon Fights Dragons

After all the hard work of sitting in the back of a car for 8 hours we walked around and tried to find a hotel with as P'Joke said "An Art Feel" after failing this we settled for a very nice place around the corner and we were shattered! The only rooms left were V.I.P rooms but it was £10 a person and included Breakfast, so we weren't complaining! although our room wasn't ready yet, so we sat about reading newspapers and drifting off to sleep.

Later on after a nap we headed to a temple and to get some food.

meat on a stick

There was a market selling some weird stuff from clothes to whiskey to toy guns..

The Disney land of the temple world.

Fair ground rides

Fair ground games

And us!

We had the pleasure of sampling the local delicacies 'Beer Lao' and 'Beer Lao Dark' we'd both recommend the dark :)

Our Abode for the night.

The Beautiful P'Key outside our hotel.

The Lao Prime Ministers Bachelor Pad

Another Temple this one was beautiful and the center building was facing in a different direction to any other of its kind, interesting eh?

The building behind us once held the Emerald Buddha but it was taken by the French (might be wrong on that one) and the building is now a museum.

Deacon turned this dragon to stone.

Las Vegas?

Bird.

We will be heading back to Lao next month to spend a bit more time there, we only stayed for one night on this trip, and next time we'll be experiencing some Saao Lao but only a few will know what that is ;)

Peace

Deac&Gilb x