Prepare to get wet - totally wet - when you step into ethnic Dai territory. The Dai people see water as a form of blessing and they pour it all over you, willy-nilly.

This happens mostly at Songkran, their New Year's Day (in April), but over at Dai Park, 27 km from Jinghong, the central town of Xishuangbanna, it is Songkran every day.

I thought Dai Park would be a version of Disneyland but not so. It is just a cluster of five villages where their ethnic architecture and lifestyle are best preserved. You see house after house along palm tree-lined paths, many people using their tourist yuan to restore their bamboo abodes to their former glory.

Nowadays it's not always bamboo that is used to build the houses but the look and feel remain authentic. Visitors come here not to take a ride - there's none unless you count the one on the elephant - but to live like a Dai for a day or two.

You can drop in and stay at any of the 326 households. They all provide food and lodging. Probably for the purpose of ventilation, the first floor is often left vacant and even the second floor is just one big floor where you can eat like a Dai. Along the walls are small rooms for which the rate goes as low as 20 yuan in the slow season and only 50 during the busy tourist season.

As the saying goes, learn one Dai song and one Dai dance, eat one Dai meal, stay one night at a Dai house, visit one Dai scenic site, conduct one Dai chore, splash one body of water, and live like a Dai for one day.

The Dai people see water as a form of blessing and can get generous with it.

Prepare to get wet - totally wet - when you step into ethnic Dai territory. The Dai people see water as a form of blessing and they pour it all over you, willy-nilly.

This happens mostly at Songkran, their New Year's Day (in April), but over at Dai Park, 27 km from Jinghong, the central town of Xishuangbanna, it is Songkran every day.

I thought Dai Park would be a version of Disneyland but not so. It is just a cluster of five villages where their ethnic architecture and lifestyle are best preserved. You see house after house along palm tree-lined paths, many people using their tourist yuan to restore their bamboo abodes to their former glory.

Nowadays it's not always bamboo that is used to build the houses but the look and feel remain authentic. Visitors come here not to take a ride - there's none unless you count the one on the elephant - but to live like a Dai for a day or two.

You can drop in and stay at any of the 326 households. They all provide food and lodging. Probably for the purpose of ventilation, the first floor is often left vacant and even the second floor is just one big floor where you can eat like a Dai. Along the walls are small rooms for which the rate goes as low as 20 yuan in the slow season and only 50 during the busy tourist season.

As the saying goes, learn one Dai song and one Dai dance, eat one Dai meal, stay one night at a Dai house, visit one Dai scenic site, conduct one Dai chore, splash one body of water, and live like a Dai for one day.