New Years Eve in Luang Prabang

What a fun day. We got a tuk-tuk down to Phousi market for some ongoing essentials - flip flops not available in Heathrow T4 and a belt left in security in Bahrain! We've this year begun sponsoring a charming young man called LouLou who by huge coincidence works in the same hotel as we're staying. He is studying IT and English at the local college so we'll be paying for his tuition for the next 5 years. This lunchtime we were invited to his mothers house where she had cooked us a delicious lunch. She's an elegant lady, speaking both English and French so we were able to converse with her quite well. They live in a humble house and its been tough for them all. Lou's father was killed in an accident when he was 6 and his older brother two years ago was knocked off his motorbike and can no longer walk or speak properly so cant work to support the family. Consequently a lot of responsibility has fallen to Lou so we're just helping him a bit.

After lunch Lou took us to a Hmong festival. Hmong are one of the minority ethnic groups and it's their New Year too - in fact for a month they party and wear traditional dress. It was rather like a village fete with various stalls including throwing darts at balloons, bingo, spinning a wheel for prizes and even a bouncy castle - it all seemed quite bizarre. The girls dress includes elaborate headwear which looked just like a lampshade! only a few of the boys wear ethnic dress obviously thinking its no longer cool. The girls wore loads of make-up and very high shoes which were quite troublesome as the field was far from even. The funniest thing is they play something called the love ball. They stand in two lines and throw tennis balls back and forth whilst chatting each other up. If you keep hold of the ball it means you fancy the other person! Or Lao speed dating.

For any of you who read our blog last year may be wondering what happened with the Novice Monk. Well we still write and we met Fan and his brother as we'd brought books and pens etc but as far as official sponsorship is concerned it all got a bit tricky this year and we have had to stop that for now. The boys are both well though and we write and do Facebook with them. New Years Eve dinner we had a relaxed and very civilised time at our hotel and at midnight let off Chinese laterns in the street - the whole sky was full of them as the town did the same - it was magical and a wonderful alternative to fireworks. HAPPY 2012.