dragon boat race in Jinghong

Today it is terribly hot and I am amazed how well i do with the heat.
11am I took the taxi downtown with Lian. We strolled towards the Mekong River. Everybody must have been on the way to the dragon boat race. The race seems to be just a vehicle to sell all kind of things from toys to cloth to live animals and to have a fair with food supply, games, gambling and all kind of things and even more you can think of.
The paddling on the boat was done by women in wonderful cloth, men were standing on both ends of the boats to give commands. To get close was almost impossible with that many people and the heat. Once a while there was a little breeze from the Mekong River.
Of course we had lunch in one of these many tents where they offer food.That was a good chance to sit down and relax in the shade. By two we decided to go back to enjoy the swimming pool of my hotel.
In the third picture you see just some wonderful dressed women and children to have food in the shade, too. Everybody was dressed up, especially the women and girls with colorful and shining dresses. Well this seems to be the most important festival of the year.
After resting and writing this block. I will go out again to get the feeling of the festival in hopefully less heat. It cools down slowly at night.