Wat Phu Festival

Boun Wat Phou is the largest festival in southern Laos, held over three days at the full moon of the third lunar month, generally February, at the UNESCO-listed Wat Phou temple complex in Champasak. Morning almsgiving and an evening candlelit viang thian procession anchor the religious program, while elephant racing, buffalo fighting, cockfighting and a cross-border trade fair fill out the surrounding secular festivities.

Boun Wat Phou draws the largest crowds of any festival in southern Laos, converging each year on the ancient Wat Phou temple complex in Champasak province, a UNESCO World Heritage site whose earliest structures date back roughly a thousand years and whose architectural style, shaped by centuries under Khmer rule, closely resembles the temples of Angkor across the border in Cambodia.