The story
Lhai Heua Fai Festival of Boats of Light in Luang Prabang
Lai Heua Fai sees roughly twenty Luang Prabang villages build large bamboo-and-banana-stem boats decorated with candles, flowers and paper, parade them through town, then set them alight and adrift on the river after dark. Held on the night of Ok Phansa, the ritual honors the naga water spirits and offers thanks while symbolically releasing the past year's misfortune downriver.
Lai Heua Fai, the festival of boats of light, provides Luang Prabang's most visually distinctive contribution to Ok Phansa, the night marking the end of Buddhist Lent, when the town's roughly twenty villages each construct a large decorated boat and parade it through the streets before launching it, lit and burning, onto the river after dark.