Nam Sok Guesthouse Luang Prabang

... a relief to get somewhere nice again as all we wanted to do was wash and sleep in a decent place for the night. <br><br>We decided to look at the night market and hopefully grab a bite to eat. We ended up at the tam tam garden restaurant which is clearly one of the nicer restaurants in the town and settled down to eat, while waiting for food i managed to also get myself a Laos sim card. Bonus! After eating we bumped into Alex ...

... and vegetable dishes and were able to pile food high onto big plates for the equivalent of 60p. We combined these delights with big bottles of Beer Lao and a whole "chicken" which I purchased optimistically for us to share between us. The woman at the stall (who incidentally was also peddling chicken heads and feet) chopped up the chicken for me with a meat cleaver, and piled the pieces into a bag. On examining the chicken and attempting to eat it, we were quite disappointed as ...

... pools that were good for swimming. It was funny to see how some pools apparently attracted the western tourists, dressed in bikinis and shorts, and other pools attracted Asian tourists from China, Malaysia, Thailand, and where ever, wearing sarongs and long trousers and t-shirts, or not swimming at all but picknicking in groups. This is why I soon covered myself up with a sarong as well. At the western pool though there was a rope and I ...

... honest we were so tired from Vietnam that we slept most of our time there. Niall got a bit of a cold too so it was a lazy lazy few days.<br> <br>In saying that, Laos turned out to be a lazy lazy few weeks but what a great few weeks. After Luang Prabang we went to Vang Vieng - home of the tube. What deadly craic! Basically you hire a tube and go down the river getting off at various points to go to the pub! Mental! Our day started ...

... are so many cat here is not because of the food, but because this is where they live. I've seen them sleeping here in the day time and this car park is their home. We should feel lucky that they don't mind us eating here. And, if anyone has a problem with the cats being around them they should go and eat in a restaurant!" We finished the night with a few drinks and off to bed. <br><br>September 30th<br><br>We woke early and went to grab some breakfast by the Mekong ...

... for our staff for the rest of the aft**noon. But I didn't succeed in finding someone to take them because it seemed that ev**yone I asked already had 4 or more. I resigned myself into bringing them home with the hopes that I could find someone to adopt them one day. So once again th**e is animal life in the house.<br><br> <br><br> <br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br>One int**esting thing about these cats is that all their tails are diff**ent. The ...

... tier. As we did the trip on our own and not with a tour group, we managed to get there before a lot of other people, which meant we had pretty much the whole thing to ourselves, with the exception of some local boys who where fearless jumping and doing backflips etc. Watching the young nimble boys do acrobatics off the tiers of the waterfall made Mark want to try as well. I was like "don't even dare". But he still had a go anyway. Luckily ...

... also travel guides in the town that tell you explicitly if this is not your faith DO NOT participate but to watch from the sides and take photos discretely. These signs also told us that when they monks are collecting alms to always be lower than them to show respect. Even with these signs and guides tourists are still tourists. I felt really privileged that there are so many monks in a large town and that I was able to see ...

... In what for me is the most beautiful temple of them all (and the most ancient), Wat Xieng Thong, which has an elegant tree of life mosaic on the back wall of the sim, the ceiling of which is painted with dharma wheels, we met the annoying Italian anti-smoking fanatic from the bus. None of the monks expect perfect behaviour from the tourists but this fellow took bad behaviour into a different league. To enter any temple (or in fact just about any home or building) in Laos, one must ...