Luang Prabang today is lighten colorfully by thousand of candles at night to celebrate The Boat of Light Festival.
The Festival, original name is Lhai Heua Fai, celebrated at the night of the End of Lent to mark the end of the monks’ three-month-fast and retreat during the rainy season. People gather to make small round containers, using banana leaves on a section of banana trunk, then put flower, incense stick, candles, betel nuts and other condiments for chewing, food money on the top of the container. At dawn, donation and offerings are made at the temples. Prayers are chanted by the monks, and at dusk candlelight procession wind around the temples. The “flower boat”, lighted with candles, will be sent floating away at the bank of Mekong or Nam Khan River along with praying and chanting from locals.
Lhai Heua Fai is also aimed at sending offerings to the dead. But most of all, it is a homage to the Lord Buddha.

There are also a competition between villages and temples to celebrate this special occasion. Temples and villages build their boats of light, from bamboo and paper, which are much bigger and more elaborately decorated, take paradise at night, along the Old Quarter road, before being selected to be the winner and sent to the bank of Mekong River, in front of Wat Xieng Thong’s pier.
Tomorrow (28 October 15), there will be boat racing Festival in Vientiane and Sayabouly province.