Laos New year ( Pii mai )

hi there

there are some conflicting dates for Pii Mai festival for 2009 - apparently it does vary by a day to two each year - can someone confirm the dates for 2009?

Laos New year ( Pii mai )

is their new year the same as thailand and malaysias - ie the water festival? Has anyone been there during that time? bangkok was pretty hectic. would be great to see if it is on when we are there, so we know whether we%26#39;ll need to avoid it or plan before hand. hhmmmm...

Laos New year ( Pii mai )

there are some great videos on you tube

BTW when u say bangkok was hectic do u mean even more hectic than normal! lol

YEP definately more hectic than normal :( I%26#39;ll never go again through songkran unless i have to, or i%26#39;m going particularly for that. the main markets are closed and you aren%26#39;t dry for one minute of the day, not great when you are leaving on a plane that weekend. There was also a lot of trouble and i saw a teenager get murdered. was pretty bad. and what%26#39;s OH%26amp;S in asia? LOL!

Songkran is Thai. Pi Mai is Laos.

BTW dates for pi mai have been confirmed at 14 15 16 April 2009

Yeah i know songkran is thai, that%26#39;s where i was talking about. but i did ask about dates for pii mai.

thanks for confirming dates, happy to hear we won%26#39;t be there at that time!

Hello...

Will you let me know if you found out information on traveling to Laos during water festival? Is it chaotic? A good idea to travel during this time? Please post if you found out anything! Thanks...

hey i got back from my laos trip and was there for NYE and i can%26#39;t imagine that even their NY will be busy. And even if it is, the locals are just so fantastic that you will probably have a better time being there for it. it%26#39;s a good experience to have, it was just that i had mine in bangkok and it is a lot busier. laos is just wonderful and i think you%26#39;d enjoy being there for it....i say to organise your trip and make sure you%26#39;re there! :)

';and i can%26#39;t imagine that even their NY will be busy.';

Yes, Pi Mai is busy.

of course it will be busy, but out of control busy so you%26#39;d want to avoid it? i doubt it. It was busy for our whole trip, so busy that we were barely getting accomm (especially vientianne and luang prabang) and all flights were booked out to go anywhere so we had to bus it everywhere which we love, but for the leg back down south again from LP to don det, that%26#39;s when we wanted to fly to pakse, and unfortunately we had to sit on coaches for 28 hours with 2 x 1 hour stops only, simply because it was a busy period. But comparing that to thailand songkran, is nothing, and i can not ever imagine that laos will ever be as busy as that. Which is why i suggested that perhaps they don%26#39;t schedule their trip to avoid it, but to instead slot it in for their trip.