Bun Bang Fai Rocket Festival
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In May in Laos it’s time for the Bun Bang Fai Rocket Festival, which means cover your ears and look up as hundreds of thousands of both home made and production line rockets are launched skywards. Though firing rockets may seem a strange way of pleasing the gods, the festival is held to help ensure good rain and an abundant crop season. It is also a time to say prayers for fertility. As is fitting with the festivals religious nature, the best rocket builders are the Buddhist monks, who construct their rockets to an age old traditional blueprint and fill them with gunpowder and ribbons an top them with a dragons head. People are quite competitive about their rockets, each family wanting to make the biggest bang or travel the furthest distance, and there are several prizes for the most successful launches. After the rockets have been fired the party atmosphere continues with music, dancing and boisterous partying.
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