Luang Prabang

A view of the Mekong from town
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We really enjoyed the lush views all along our way and when we got to Luang Prabang it was worth it. This town is a UNESCO world heritage site in order to preserve the French influenced heritage of the town. You can get fantastic French bread just about anywhere. The town itself is lovely and although is already touristy, it has retained it’s low key charm.

We enjoyed a tour of the King’s Palace, a view from Phousi Mountain, a trek thru the countryside to the Kuang Sii waterfalls for a swim, strolling along the Mekong River, watching people make and dry rice cakes on the sidewalks, and walked through the lovely shops and the night market filled with handmade textiles and other goods. The quality of the goods and the low prices were quite something. Too bad we can’t buy something from everyone. We were amazed during our trek to see poinsettia plants that were twice the size of us. Pretty impressive and nice to see as it ‘tis the season. (check out the pic)

Now that's a rice cake!
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The food was fantastic as well. We tried some local buffalo and pork sausage, seaweed and coconut curry fish cooked in banana leaves.

Thus far, we have found Laos to be a wonderful destination. The people here are very soft spoken and friendly.

Tidbit of the day: The language is tonal similar to Thailand and some words have a similar sound to them. We have found it interesting that the tone of the word when spoken is very important as many words might have the same spelling but have different meanings based on the tone. We think that we’re finally getting the hang of the tones (at least when saying hello and thank you!)