Symoungkoun Guesthouse Luang Prabang

... we continued exploring the town, as well as found a travel agency where we booked a one night trek leaving the morning after next. <br><br>On Thursday we grabbed a light breakfast, rented bicycles and cycled around the town, stopping at a few of the plethora of temples. We had lunch at a restaurant on the river. I had a stir fried basil chicken dish which was excellent - definitely the best meal I'd had in Laos to date. After lunch, we rode our bikes about three miles down a city ...

We landed on Don Sao Island in the country of Laos to be greeted by the children of the village selling handicrafts but mostly with their hands out seeking coins. No different than any other poor country. Parents pimp out their children for 20 bahts in exchange for pictures or sympathy due to their substandard living conditions. It is difficult to not walk by the children without reaching into my purse ...

... tourist photographing it... but oh well, what can you do. I just thought of the tourists in Amsterdam photographing everything. <br><br>Following a random sign<br> I had decided to take a night bus instead of a day bus, since I had already seen the scenery and was backtrekking the same route to Vientiane. This would also give me the extra daytime to spend in Luang Prabang. I spent a leisurely day reading my book in a quiet garden ...

... by the lake the same (second) day it was back to town and for us, onto the next stop, a town called Pakse. I'm afraid we have absolutely nothing much to say about that cos its really just a transient town. But what it did mean was that we were closer to the 4000 Islands - where we went kayaking for 3 whole days! It meant we were ever closer to our last stop in Laos and the journey to the Laos-Cambodian border was almost done. <br><br> <br>

... able to exploring the city on foot and rent a bicycle also. Our hostess gladly helped us find the necessary route for visiting the most enjoyable attractions. I loved visiting the monks at the many temples in the city, they told us all about the role of Buddhism in the life of a Laotian. <br><br>During our Laos travels we visited and swam at the Kuang Si waterfalls ...

... the office to help mop up. They called the landlady, she brought ov** h** family, oth** friends came and within a half an hour I had ov** 10 people helping me clean up. About 6 hours lat** we had the house back to normal. I was et**nally grateful for all the help so in keeping with Lao tradition, I showed my thanks by having&#8230;you guessed it&#8230; a party. The rest of the aft**noon was spent eating, drinking and telling funny stories.<br><br ...

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... and not just its culture. One of the days, we took a lengthy long-boat trip up the Mekong to the Pak Ou caves, accessible only by water. The two caves are littered with thousands of Buddhist statues of various sizes and signifficance; lit only by the flickering candlelight hitting the smoke from the incense sticks. That afternoon we hopped in a minibus a Km's north of Luang Prabang to an exceptional group of waterfalls. We spent our ...

... had been killed in the hills around Luang Prabang and two other cubs were so badly treated that by the time they were rescued they subsequently died. Now Phet was eight months old, in good health, almost fully grown and living in a cage in the front yard of a Forestry Department building on the outskirts of town. When we went to see her she was sat looking bored on the concrete floor of her specially made tiger cage, gazing wistfully at a couple of geese that were strutting around ...