PIP: Hundreds of thousands of tourists, traders, businessmen, truckers, migrant workers, and transient tribal minorities cross from Thailand into the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) each day. Unlike Thailand, Lao has low rates of HIV infection. The significant cross-border flow of population, however, demands that Lao and its population take caution to avoid contracting and spreading HIV. Lao's Boat Race Festival is an event during which people are expected to lose their inhibitions. The Boat Race festivities held October 26-28, 1996, in Vientiane and two other Lao towns across the Mekong River from Thailand marked the launch of an innovative safer sex promotion campaign designed by the AIDS Control and Prevention (AIDSCAP) Project and CARE International to reach people from both sides of the river with timely HIV/AIDS prevention messages and methods. The project particularly targets people who regularly cross the Lao-Thai border and their sex partners. Mass education, condom distribution, and outreach activities were an important part of the 1996 festival.