Working Hours: Monday to Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. and form 2 p.m. till 5 p.m. Official holidays include:
International New Year January 1
Lao New Year mid April
International Labor Day May 1
National Day December 2

Event date

January
International New Year's Day: A public holiday celebrated with private basi ceremonies and increasingly nowadays, with large parties.
Boun Pha Vet: During this festival, the birth story, or Jataka, of Prince Vessantara, the Buddha's penultimate existence, is told. It is regarded as an auspicious time for Lao males to be ordained into the monkhood. Temples in villages throughout Laos celebrate the three-day festival with sermons, fortune-telling, processions, and dance and drama performances.

February
Boun Makkha Busaa: This festival commemorates a central speech given by the Buddha to a group of enlightened monks in which he is said to have set out the first series of monastic regulations and predicted his own death. It is celebrated with chanting, offerings and candlelit processions at temples throughout the country. Boun Makkha Busaa is celebrated with particular aplomb at the ruins of Wat Phu outside Champasak, where it includes elephant races, water buffalo and cock fighting, and traditional music and dance performances.

Vietnamese Tet/Chinese New Year: The Chinese and Vietnamese communities in Vientiane, Pakse and Savannakhet celebrate the lunar new year with private parties, firecrackers, parades and visits to Vietnamese and Chinese temples. In Vientiane, Chinese opera is often performed near the waterfront.

April
Lao New Year: In Laos, Pi Mai, or New Year, is the most fervently celebrated event of the year. It is a time when the entire country stops working and begins to party; only three days are official public holidays, but most Lao take the whole week off.
In Luang Prabang the celebration is especially beautiful, and includes a large, colourful parade filled with traditional Lao costumes, music and dance, the procession of the sacred Prabang Buddha image, a Miss New Year beauty contest, and a handicraft fair.

May
International Labour Day: A public holiday occasionally marked by trade fairs and parades in the capital.
Boun Visakha Busaa: Starting on the 15th day of the sixth lunar month, this festival celebrates the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and passing away, and is marked at temples by ancestor worship, chanting and preaching, and candlelit processions in the evening.
Boun Bang Fai: The bang fai, or rocket, festival is a pre-Buddhist ceremony in which villages compete to produce the highest-flying homemade bamboo rockets, fired into the sky in order to celebrate fertility and call for the rains. The festival is filled with traditional music, dance, folk-theatre performances, processions, and lots of sexual imagery.

July
Boun Khao Phansa/Khao Watsa: This festival marks the beginning of the three-month Buddhist "rains retreat", during which time monks are forbidden to leave their temples and must spend their time in prayer and meditation. It is the traditional time of year for Lao men to enter monkhood temporarily. The tak baat, or alms-giving ritual, can be seen at temples around the country.

August/September
Boun Haw Khao Padap Dinh: During this festival the living pay respect to the dead, usually by making an offering at the local temple so that the monks will chant on behalf of the deceased.

October/November
Boun Ok Phansa/Ok Watsa: The end of the monks' three-month fast and retreat during the rainy season. In Vientiane the water festival is quite spectacular; on the first day at dawn, donations and offerings are made at temples around the city; in the evening, candlelit processions are held around the temples, and hundreds of colourful floats decorated with flowers, incense and candles are set adrift down the Mekong River in thanksgiving to the river spirits; the next day an exciting longboat race is held on the Mekong.

November
Boun That Luang: This three-day religious festival is held in and around That Luang stupa, the national symbol of Laos, where hundreds of monks gather to accept alms and floral offerings from Lao and Thai worshippers alike. The festival includes a candlelit procession circling That Luang, a grand fireworks display, and an international trade fair near the temple that lasts for one week.

December
Lao National Day: This public holiday commemorating the 1975 Communist victory in Laos is marked by military parades and official speeches, and is probably the only time in Laos that you will ever see the hammer and sickle displayed in public.

Hmong New Year: All month on different dates in different Hmong villages; celebrations include colourful costumed displays and musical performances using traditional instruments such as the teun flute and Hmong-style khene pipe. The Hmong also enjoy activities such as the mak khon cotton-ball throwing ceremony, ox fighting, spinning-top races and cross-bow demonstrations.