Xayaboury festival to infuse visitors with ancient tea, colourful blooms

Drinking tea sourced from over 1,000-year-old trees, admiring colourful flowers and other activities will be the highlights at next month’s Dokdai Dokdaeng Festival in Doykao village, Xaysathan district, Xayaboury province, Laos.

Governor of Xaysathan district, Mr Kongsy Vongsy, told Vientiane Times yesterday that the Dokdai Dokdaeng Festival takes its name from the late blooming red flower following the rice harvest in the hills.

The flower is the symbol of the local Pray ethnic group who use it in important events such as baci ceremonies.

Local authorities will confirm the actual festival dates in the very near future with the event to include performances by the Pray ethnic group, drinking tea brewed with leaves picked from 1,000-year-old trees and sampling other local farm produce such as taro.

Visitors can enjoy green and red tea production demonstrations with leaves picked from ancient trees as well as visit the houses of the Pray ethnic group to learn about their lifestyle.

“Some of the tea trees have been inspected and confirmed by Chinese and European experts as being 1,000 years old,” Mr Kongsy said.

“The festival is being held to celebrate the end of the Pray people’s upland rice harvest and the very beautiful flowers that bloom at this time of year,” he added. Most of the Pray ethnic group live in mountainous regions of Xayaboury province where they mainly work as farmers growing tea, coffee and taro.

“The Pray differ from other ethnic groups as they only have spoken communication and don’t have a written language,” Mr Kongsy said.

Xaysathan district is located about 60 km from the provincial capital and is known for its lofty mountains with their fresh air and rolling fog.

Local authorities plan to build some lookouts in the district for visitors to take advantage of the stunning views. Xayaboury province is located in northern Laos about 300 km from Vientiane.

The province is full of fascinating places and has 29 officially designated sites of natural beauty, 12 cultural sites, and 6 historical sites.

More than 234,000 domestic and international tourists visited the province last year, according to the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism.

Editor: John Li