Hae Bang Fai is a Lao rain-making Festival celebrated most famously in Yasothon but also in many towns and villages throughout the Isan Region and the Lao PDR. Some villages prefer the Hae Nang Maew festival, in which a yowling cat is paraded around the village in a basket, the villagers hoping presumably that the gods will take pity on the poor creature and send them rain - at which point I presume they will release the cat.
Many businesses close down for the days of the festival including the lady who did our laundry - compelling us to stay an extra, not unpleasureable, day.