Luang Prabang

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A 6 hour minibus journey, along very windy roads (not good for a hungover stomach :o) brings us to the World Heritage town of Luang Prabang. After an initial worry of having only about 8 dollars between the 3 of us, and the banks closing before we arrive, we finally found a visa advance exchange. 'Rich' again :o)

Due to time constraints, Matt, has flown on to Chiang Mai this morning..

Luang Prabang has a really nice atmosphere and is a lovely town..

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Luang Prabang has a really nice atmosphere and is a lovely town. There are loads of restaurants/bakeries serving up nice food and cakes and you can see the french influence with the baguettes and pastries. It's refreshing that the Lao ambience and heritage is also apparent and has been retained.

It seems we arrived at the right time with a festival occuring that the locals are really ethused about; boat races on the river. Unfortunately it rained all day but it didn't seem to spoil the fun. I didn't bring out the camera but you should have seen the boats go. About 30 brightly-dressed men in a boat with Indian style paddles going as fast as possible racing another opponent. It went on all day and there was alot of Beer Lao consumed :o)

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Luang Prabang has a few nice bars but the town itself has a curfew which means everything closes abruptly at 11-11.30pm. It appears the cops are very strict so if an underground place does open later it doesn't last long. It can be a bit of an inconvenience but it's not all that bad if you understand the locals arise every morning at 6am to give food to the monks. As in Vang Vieng, it pretty much hasn't stopped raining since we got here (our tans are disappearing fast). One good afternoon of sunshine was enjoyed and we did a boat trip to the cave with 1000 Buddhas. It was interesting but quite alot of time travelling on a slow boat, where your sitting on wooden seats, and can't move around. At least it got us out of bed at 7am :o) We didn't manage to do it but the waterfall is a must-see.

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We're running into some difficulties getting to our next intended destination - north Thailand. It appears the options are 2 days in a slow 'boat' and a bus, 7 hours in a speed-boat (which is not recommended) and a bus, flying (all flights sold out for the next 3 days) or going by bus back to Vientiane and then another over-night bus. So we're in a bit of a pickle as I type this. Decision to be updated.... Well, it appears overhearing a whispered conversation and slipping $10 in someone's direction has brought us good fortune. Tomorrow we leave on the sold-out flight to Chiang Mai - Yippee!!

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We began our last night leisurely wandering around the night market and picking up a few locally made items. Then we had hoped to have an easy night, but as we were saying goodbye to a few friends, one Beer Lao for the road was called upon. One became several and next thing you know we're back in a guest house til the wee hours. We got up for our flight a little worse for the wear :o)

We say goodbye to Kelly (see you in California), Andy aka Oslo Snowplough, Taylor aka Orlando BlueSteel, Jane & Ian from myself, Malmo Highlander and Kev aka Helsinki Ubend :o)