Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang seems to do things differently to the rest of Laos. You have to purchase maps instead of them being made available for free and hotel check out is 11am not 12 noon.

I forgot to mention earlier that in Laos, rice is sticky rice unless you ask for it steamed, or you get given the option. I had never had sticky rice with a meal before and i love it. Even with a stir fry it is very nice, the thing it does make you do is to eat slower. Because it is sticky you need to chew it more, slowing down the process of eating.


Monday 24th

We chose to get the mini-bus instead of the normal size bus as it took two hours less and only cost 10 000kip more. We left at 9:30am, there were six other travellers with us on the bus, although it wasn't full. Along the way two Laotians were picked up. The whole trip was up and down through windy mountains. We only stopped for a break once, which was fine by everyone it would seem. I wasn't feeling very good when we stopped and made myself throw up for good measure.

We arrived in Luang Prabang at 1:30pm at the bus station to awaiting tuk tuk drivers. They all seemed to work together as all of the passengers bar us were piled into one tuk tuk at 15 000kip each. We refused and walked off to the main road, along the way another driver asked us and accepted 10 000kip each. So we paid less than everyone else, got dropped off where we wanted to and weren't crammed in with five other people.

Arrived at our hotel of choice to find it was booked out. We went up the main street but found nothing adequate, we then went towards the Mekong side where we found our first hotel (more on this later) for 100 000kip. We had a rest and went out for an early dinner as I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and I felt much better.


Tuesday 25th

We didn't notice it earlier because we had the t.v on but when we were in bed and the room was silent, it was not silent. Firstly, there was a dripping noise coming from our drain in the bathroom, eventhough our tap and toilet weren't leaking and as we found out later, a water pump connected to a water tank was right outside our window, thus making noises constantly. We were too lazy to get up early and find another hotel so we slept in, found another one in the afternoon for our next three nights. It was two minutes up the room, a nicer room and the same price. As a bonus it has computers which are not meant to be free but we've never been asked to pay for any usage. Although it didn't have a t.v, however it didn't really matter.

We had dinner at sunset at one of the many restaurants lining the Mekong River.


Wednesday 26th

We left our first hotel this morning, went to our new hotel, put our stuff in and went out for lunch. After lunch we went up to Phu Si, which is a 100m high hill in the middle of Luang Prabang with many Wats on it. Up and down involved 800 steps, although the first set of steps were the hardest. The peak gave an impressive view of the town.

On our way down on the other side i saw two novice monks and decided to ask one of them some questions. He said he spoke a little bit of English but it turned out to be alot and pretty good. He told me that there's an Australian woman who teaches English to the monks at his monastery. He told me what a monk's day involved, what food is donated and that he wanted to be a monk for life as opposed to someone who takes it up for a period of time.

After dinner we had a look though the Hmong night market, which opens up in front of the old palace on the main street. We didn't purchase anything other than a fruit shake.


Thursday 27th

We decided to get the overnight bus to Huay Xai instead of the slow boat (2 days, 1 night) so we booked that. It cost us 180 000kip ($22.50) each. We noticed that in terms of both time and distance, Laos is much much more expensive than Vietnam and Cambodia.  After doing this we went to the old palace, which is now a museum. When the Communists took over Laos the Royal family were removed from power and escaped to some caves in the North.

The palace wasn't as grand as the Cambodian equivalent but in the main rooms it had stories on the walls with the main aspects have coloured glass on them, it looked very nice and certainly unique. Part of the museam was the King's old cars, basically four old cars in a garage. There was also a photo exhibition of monks in various states of meditation.

The cost of entry into the sights of Luang Prabang was also excessive, with the palace costing 30 000kip and Phu Si costing 20 000kip.


Friday 28th

The other downside about our second hotel was that the walls were fairly thin and we could here snoring on both sides. It wasn't over the top and at times quite funny, particularly to Kay.

Today we went down to the Nam Khan side of the town and walked all the way to the tip of the peninsula and returned back down the Mekong side. Whilst near the tip we had a look at the most famous Wat - Wat Xieng Thong. There was an admission fee of 20 000kip so we didn't go in. It's not right that you should have to pay to see what is an active religious site, oh that's right, only foreigners have to pay. We wanted to be extra tight as not to have to buy more Kip, although this didn't quite work out.

We ate at the Hmong night market for dinner, having various noodles and char grilled chicken, Kay had a papaya salad aswell (not my thing). Kay purchased a cotton and silk table runner for her mum and i got what i dubbed 'my nut bowl' - a wooden bowl.


Saturday 29th

We had to be up before 11am so that we could check out today, we heard our neighbours leave earlier so we suspected that our power had been turned off instead of theirs. We didn't mind as we had plenty of natural light in the room bar the bathroom. As it turned out there was a black out in the whole town.

We went to the Scandinavian bakery for lunch, i had what was similar to a subway chicken sub. Unfortunately for alot of people they couldn't enjoy a coffee. We then went to go to the internet cafe to use Skype but of course we couldn't do this without electricity. We then went down to the Nam Khan and sat there opposite a makeshift beach for almost an hour. When we went back into town we saw the power was back so we called home and booked our hotel in Huay Xai (not wanting any difficulties on arrival).

After that we went for a walk to the opposite part of town that we hadn't been to. I saw a soup place so we sat down and i had a beef noodle soup. The fruit man came past and Kay got some watermelon for us. The watermelon in Luang Prabang (we had some before) was so good, best fruit of the trip. On the other occasion Kay bought some fruit that i don't know the name of and she only knows the Burmese name (which is Burmese for balls, as in a man's balls), that was very sour to me.

Pick up is at 6pm so it's purely killing time up until then, hence i'm writing this now.