Vat Phou festival starts on Feb 20

Champassak district governor Mr Nouchan Chanthaphong said on Friday local authorities were ready to welcome a great number of visitors to the festival this year.

There are three hotels and 17 guesthouses with a total of 250 rooms able to provide accommodation for 300 people per day. Home stays were also available if visitors want to stay with locals.

“We are able to provide food for more than 500,000 people in Champassak district. So there will be plenty to serve to visitors at local restaurants,” he said.

He said visitors to the festival need not worry about accommodation, food or transport. If they don’t want to stay in the district, they can go to hotels and guest houses in Pakse or nearby districts because transport between Pakse and Champassak was no problem.

Nouchan also said local people would prepare traditional foods such as boiled chicken served with red ant eggs in a chicken soup, grilled native chicken and khaolaam (sticky rice mixed with coconut cream, sugar, salt and water in a young bamboo stalk and grilled over hot charcoal). “Boiled chicken served up with red ant eggs in a chicken soup is a traditional food symbolic of Champassak,” he said.

Travellers to the Vat Phou Festival can taste the boiled chicken which local people cook in large pots in the grounds of the temple. It makes a delicious meal which visitors should try when they are there.

Vat Phou is 700km south of Vientiane on Road 13 South.