A Wat Overdose and one Scary Tuk Tuk Driver

View from the bus to Luang Prabang
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The Lonely Planet states that the pictures do not lie - Luang Prabang is simply stunning.

Luang Prabang has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995 to protect the town's prehistoric temples, the former Royal Palace and classic French colonial buildings from being destroyed by modernity or overbuilding.

Our 6 hour bus journey into Luang Prabang from Vang Vieng was a mixed bag. In terms of actual ride, it was horrendous, 6 hours of winding roads up and down mountains and hillsides. I don't usually get motion sickness but I was so glad that we had not had time to eat breakfast that morning as I would have thrown that all up along with the remnants of the previous nights dinner! But the view from the bus was beautiful - fields, mountains, waterfalls - and I do think that bus journeys are the only way to truly see the real Lao - the real local people living in bamboo/wooden huts supported by wooden stilts on the edges of the hillsides. I think I would be quite scared to live in one of those - go out the front door and you're on the road, look out of the back window and you're greeted by the beautiful hillside scenery and a sheer drop down the hillside itself! We saw so many amazing things - Lao children playing in puddles on the side of the road, buffalos in fields.........

Soaked to the skin after yet another night walking back in the pouring rain!
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I have to say that Luang Prabang is very pretty and the view of the temples. rivers and the surrounding hills from the top of Mount Phousi (no jokes there please - the trouble with travelling with guys is that they make enough jokes about something like this for a life time and yes, there is also a Phousi Guesthouse, Phousi Hotel and .....sigh...a Phousi Massage Parlour) is simply beautiful but if I'm being honest, I don't think that I would call it stunning. I don't know, maybe I've seen so many beautiful places already - Vang Vieng, Guilin.... or maybe I'm more of a green scenery and river kind of girl (yep, London's totally been wiped from me now!) and not so much architecture and temples or maybe I'm just simply overdosed on Wats by now but I can't say that I was that in awe with Luang Prabang.

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Luang Prabang is small and just about everywhere can be reached by foot so practically any guesthouse or hotel is well located. Just as well, as it was the first time that Michelle and I had not booked anywhere in advance - we decided to not play it safe for once and just show up at a guesthouse, ask to see a room and hope that something good came along. In the end, we managed to find a reasonable guesthouse with air con and a private bathroom for $9 a night. It was not the Hilton or even just a Western but it was just about liveable and meant we were with the guys we'd been travelling with (since everyone left Vang Vieng for Luang Prabang at the same time). The bathroom door did not shut and we had to be careful of the kids peeking into the bathroom from outside but the bed was big and come on, they had sheets with Koala bears in hearts on them! Haha! Actually, it was abit annoying, there was actually another twin room downstairs but we just missed getting it by a pair of other Brit guys who we shared a tuk tuk with. Even more annoying was the fact that they had gotten out of the tuk tuk earlier to check out another place and so had actually reached our guesthouse later than us but being female, we took a while deciding whether to take the room and so they took what should have been our twin room. Oh well. We live and learn.

Presidential Palace Museum
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So our first night in Luang Prabang was interesting to say the least. Since half of Vang Vieng was now in Luang Prabang, everyone met up at the Hive bar in town. Like Vientiane, places in Luang Prabang closed early with only the local bowling alley and one disco opened after midnight. So everyone decided to go for a round of bowling before heading to the club.

(Actually, I now realise why places close so early in Lao. The Morning Alns Giving - the morning monk's round - Tak Bat in Lao - is a living Buddhist tradition for the people of Lao where local people/believers contribute rice offerings to the monks - if it weren't for the fact that we were feeling poorly the last couple of days in Luang Prabang, we would have liked to have gotten up early to see this)

Wat near the Presidential Palace Museum
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Now one thing that really irks me is when travellers and tourists do not respect the local culture and traditions. For example, in the lane next to ours at the bowling alley was this highly obnoxious looking bleached blond guy in what looked to me like a tight white 80s shell suit. It appeared as though he had just hit a strike and in his celebration he tried to put an arm around this Lao lady who was an employee of the bowling alley. Now in Lao, there are several do's and don'ts and one of them is not to touch or show affection in public as this will embarrass your hosts. Now I didn't know this at first either but the Lao lady politely met his arm in mid air and pushed it away telling him that he couldn't do that. Now anyone would have stopped with their action but not this highly obnoxious w@nker of a guy - he simply laughed and tried again thinking that it was funny. The Lao lady looked uncomfortable as she told him again not to do that and pushed his forthcoming arm away yet again. Still he tried - looking at her and going 'come on'......oh my god, alittle respect and being less of a dick would not kill you! So I kinda understand when Lao people are generally friendly and mild mannered but when they get travellers who come along and not respect their culture and traditions, I think if it were me, I'd get alittle pissed off to say the least. Aside from this and the fact that this arrogant American guy called Neil (who thought he was god at bowling and had to been accompanied to the lane with someone holding an umbrella for him each time it was his go) taking Michelle's place so that she had to miss out on the bowling action, it was good to do something 'normal' like at home (not that I can remember the last time I actually went bowling - anyone????).

View of Luang Prabangfrom the top of Phousi Moutain
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Haha, no, it was our tuk tuk ride to the disco which was interesting. So after negotiating a 2,000 Kip per person price tag, approximately 15 people squeezed into this tiny tuk tuk with at least 3 or 4 guys holding onto the sides and top of the outside of the tuk tuk like spiderman. (Seriously, there really does not appear to be any driving safety regulations in Lao - or Thailand for that matter - several people will sit on one moped - like an entire family - 6 year old kid in front with dad steering and mum in the back with baby in her arms! I am actually being serious!) So anyways, somewhere on a street the driver stops and gets out. 'Are we there?' we all wondered - this quiet street certainly did not look like the disco. 'No it's not' yelled the Canadian guy next to me 'we rode past it on our bikes today, it's outside of town, where the f#ck are we? Where the f#uck has he taken us?' Now I never think it to be appropriate to swear loudly or yell in a such a patronising way to anyone - and particularly not to someone when you are in their country. So (whilst wishing that someone could punch the annoying Canadian around the face) I asked the tuk tuk driver nicely that we wanted to go to the disco and that this wasn't it. So he got back into the front seat and carried on driving for about 2 minutes. Then he stopped and got out and that's when the trouble started. Not happy that we were not at the disco but just back into town, many of our group started arguing with the driver. "why have you taken us here? - we asked to go to the disco - why have you not taken us there?'. 'Disco closed' replied the tuk tuk driver. Right, so if he had known that why did he say he would take us there in the first place????? So we told him this and tried to walk away but he told us we had to pay. 'But you've not taken us where we asked you to' replied our group. 'Pay, pay' yelled the tuk tuk driver. So we tried walking off again. And that is when the tuk tuk driver got back to his tuk tuk and took out a knife. To be fair, the knife blade was about 4 inches long at the most and there were about 15 of us so he couldn't have stabbed many of us - maybe only those closest to him - but I didn't really want to be there to find out. And at 2,000 Kip for each person - approx 10 pence, it wasn't really worth the trouble. But unfortunately, some people in our group didn't get this and continued to argue with the tuk tuk driver winding him up even more. Many of the people in our group kept on saying that there was only one of him and so many of us so we needn't worry but this tuk tuk driver could have easily gotten his mates and then it could have been a whole lot worse.With some people in our group really not knowing when to shut up (to be honest, how some of our group were acting, I'm not surprised the tuk tuk driver got out a knife - seriously, I would have threatened a few of them too if they had spoken to me like that), a few of us who just didn't want the trouble paid up and just walked away leaving those others to carry on arguing. (By the way, everyone was ok and no one got stabbed in case anyone was wondering!)

View of Luang Prabang from the top of Phousi Mountain
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Mind you, despite this slight hiccup, I still think Lao people are the friendliest I have met. I do think that being female and being oriental helps a great deal - the waiters always speak to me and Michelle and even a few monks that we met on top of Phousi Mountain who we exchanged emails with (- yep, monks have emails, we were pretty surprised by that to say the least!). But many people will smile and say hello to you as long you are polite and friendly too, show alittle interest and respect their traditions and culture.

View of Luang Prabang and the Mekong River from the top of Phousi Mountain
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We actually stayed in Luang Prabang for only one full day before heading to Nong Kiau (Khiew) and then had two days on our return - where we both got abit ill and also the annual boat festival was on (one of the two biggest annual festivals) - so unfortunately, we didn't manage to see much of the surrounding areas like the elephant camp, the waterfalls or the kayaking down the river. But what we did experience was some of the best chocolate croissants around (go to Joma's bakery!) and took in alot of the local everyday life which made up for the lack of activities. Oh and we found Lao BBQ at this bar/restaurant place - almost the same as Thai BBQ but with buffalo meat instead of beef. And I will go home as a beer addict - Beer Lao is great and I have been drinking endless bottles of that stuff here!

View of the Mekong River from the top of Phousi Mountain
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Best souvenir which I would have loved to have bought for my dad (if only it could get passed customs) was a bottle of Lao Lao with a snake in it - yep, a whole real snake! It was pretty cool and I think my dad would have really liked that!

One thing I will never forget about Luang Prabang was the rain - seriously, walking back in the rain has become such a familar routine for Michelle and I now. On the first night, it poured down and we ended up walking back to our room in the rain with the boys again and then for the following two nights in Luang Prabang, we got caught up in the rain again! And yes, we did have our China brollies but silly us took them out with us on the first night, carried them to dinner, then to the bar and then to the bowling - then we completely forgot them and left them at the bowling alley!

Aren't I a lucky girl?
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I must admit - my opinion of Luang Prabang did change by the end of our stay there. As we drove to the airport (the smallest airport I have ever seen with only about 3 planes and I'm talking real small planes!) and I looked back to see the town in the distance surrounded by hills and the sun shining, I have to say that the Lonely Planet was in fact right and yeah, I take it all back, Luang Prabang is really stunning.

I really enjoyed Lao - I am really glad that I managed to visit it before tourism takes off there in a big way and some of the culture and beauty gets losy. Lao people really arefriendly and the country is absolutely beautiful. It is less developed than many of its neighbours but I think that just adds to the sheer beauty of the country - the peace and quiet and the relaxed paced.