PI MAI - THE LAO NEW YEAR

Text by: Jason Rolan

Photos by: Phoonsab Thevongsa and Anita Preston / Evensong Film

Dawn breaks over another sweltering April morning in Luang Prabang, but today's sticky sweat will soon be washed away by a city-wide catharsis called Pi Mai. You notice it first in the faces: the usually reserved Lao smiles crack wider, mischievous glints flash in elderly eyes, and soon enough, total strangers are drenching each other in ritualized chaos. In local parlance, it's all about "hoht nam," or the pouring of water – but that polite phrase hardly captures the magnificent mayhem that transforms the capital's sleepy streets into a three-day water war.

B eneath the surface-level soaking lie complex layers of tradition that define Lao New Year. Monks still file silently through dawn mists collecting alms, while families gather for baci ceremonies where cotton strings bind wrists and blessings. In living rooms that smell of grilled fish and fresh herbs, grandmothers bark orders as daughters pound chilies and lime into laap, minced meat salads. The temples hum with prayer and

purpose, Buddha images bathed in jasmine-scented water by worshippers shufflling past in silk finery. It's a festival where sacred and profane collide – one moment, you're receiving a solemn blessing from elders, and the next, you're ambushed by gleeful kids armed with water pistols and buckets of ice water. And somehow, in the hot heart of Laos, it all makes perfect sense.

Pou Yeu, one of the guardian spirits who blesses the town during new year

A khaen player participates in the festivities

The Prabang statue comes out during this period to be washed and revered

Locals and foreigners enjoy playing with water on the streets

Miss New Year in the Pi Mai procession

Women in the Pi Mai procession protect themselves from the heat

Ritual washing of a Buddha statue

A lady washes the head of Thao Kabinlaphom, a legendary figure in the Pi Mai legend