Spent my first day here wandering a few temples, taking in the sights and 'soaking up the culture' (i apologize for the use of such a corny phrase there), which was nice, but i couldn't help but feel that i was being ripped off due to the excessive amount of entrance fees i was having to pay. Someone brought it home to me when they said the fact that you don't pay entrance fees to go inside a church back home do you, which i suppose is essentially what I'm doing here. Luang Prabang has this very relaxed peaceful atmosphere, making you feel content to dwindle away the days doing seemingly little but sit in Cafes and coffee shops drinking fruit shakes.
In the evening i checked out the culinary delights of the night market, where i had been informed by several other travelers that there was a bit of a 'hidden gem', tucked away down a side street. A vegetarian buffet (BUFFET!!! ALL YOU CAN EAT, 5000 KIP! Obviously i was very excited by this) where you pile a much of the food as you like(can i mean, sorry) onto your plate, then they heat it up for you and you devour. I'd strongly recommend this to anyone visiting the town, especially the lone traveler on a budget. Not only is it good, healthy food, but due to its popularity its a great place to meet other travelers, as i did there. Martin and i bonded over our love of eating far too much food, and with Chloe we went for a couple of drinks in Lao Lao Garden, one of about three bars in town. Things are pretty quiet in the evenings here.
Next day
Crossing the river to see some more temples was a more rewarding trek than the previous day's expedition, mainly because of the lack of falang there. The walk to the temples on the other side is along a winding path through a local small village, and i didn't see another westerner around at all. The temples were Wat Xieng Maen, Wat Chomephet and Wat Longhoune i think. The first temple i mentioned is pretty cool and worth a look if your ever there, as it is 100m inside a cave and contains the usual Buddha sculptures, with the unique difference that they are carved out of wood (they look like there made of tree bark). I felt like the entrance fees were worthwhile here. Wat Chomephet is pretty unimpressive as a temple itself, but where it fails as an architectural structure, it more than makes up for it with a fantastic, tourist free view of the Mekong river and the surrounding area. A beer at sunset would be an ideal way to spend some time up there.
The evening followed a pretty similar plan to the previous one, vegetarian buffet (you know me, how am i ever gonna turn that down!) followed by drinking at Lao Lao garden. Martin had the ingenious idea to 'drink on the cheap' however, so we treated ourselves to a bottle of tiger whiskey and some sprite and proceeded to get rather drunk on the sly in Lao Lao garden and outside, drinking our own drinks and then buying coke to add the whiskey to when we ran out of sprite.
Luang Prabang has a very strange institution that anyone who's ever been there will know about, and will most definitely have been to:- the bowling alley. There is practically no nightlife in Luang Prabang, the bars all shut at 11 or 12 and then all is quiet round town. Or thats what they want you to think...
There is a bowling alley outside of town. Well i say alley; it has 5 lanes and its open till about 3 am, and they have alcohol for sale, beer Lao to be precise. Basically this place just becomes a haven for people who want to carry on drinking and hence in a town on the backpacker circuit, it get packed out pretty quickly. We didn't stay for long this night, as we were planning on a big session the next evening.
To get home, we did the usual drunken arrogant thing of 'i don't need to pay for a taxi(tuk-tuk), its not far, i can walk it' despite the fact we had no idea which way it was, we were pretty drunk and it was pitch black. So we were pretty lucky when these two Lao guys passed us on motorbikes, stopped, and offered us a lift back into town for free. Naturally we were pretty skeptical at first 'riiiiiiggghhhhhhhhttt, so its 3 am, I'm drunk, and your offering me a 'free lift' 'into town'. Yeah not to sure bout that mate, maybe I'll walk.'
Turns out they were the bar staff from the Lao Lao garden, so once they told us this (and we then recognised them) we hopped on. Result.
The last day in Luang Prabang was a good one, despite having the stomach hangover i always get (i know, don't go drinking a bottle of tiger whiskey then!). We Went to the Kuang Si waterfalls, about 1hr out from Luang Prabang itself, and my highlight in terms of sights. It is a multitieres waterfall of tremendous heights, with water cascading down the limestone rocks into several crystal clear pool formations which one can swim in. It made a perfect way to spend a day and i was quite content to relax in these pools all day. They also have a conservation centre for black bears and some kind of tiger there, which is pretty cool. Considering Laos has only had its door open to tourists for about 8 years now, they are very on the ball with wildlife and nature conservation, in comparison to other south east Asian neighbours. Hopefully this will prevent the country going the same way as Thailand, where much of the countryside has already been destroyed.
On returning back to Luang Prabang we killed time until the evening when we met the others at Lao Lao garden, as it was the birthday of one of the girls we had met a few nights before (they really can't do birthday cakes here! see pics) and we had planned on a night at the bowling alley (woo hoo). Martin did a very impressive job recruiting drinking buddies and we again repeated the tiger whiskey scheme (when will we learn?). The party did spill over to the bowling alley tonight, where we met up with the Lao Lao garden bar guys and proceeded to get our asses kicked at bowling. Didn't even bowl 100, pathetic (i know sam, I'm sure you'd have cained them, but i was wasted). Woke the next morning at 9, and got the 12:30 bus to Vang Vieng.
One thing i did forget to mention, which is actually my fondest memory of luang prabang, is the multi talentedness of the tuk-tuk drivers. During the day they ply their trade offering rides around town, trips to the falls, trips to the caves, you name it, they'll go there (for a price). However in the evening you'll wander the streets only to hear 'psssssssstttttt' 'pppppppssssssssssttttttt' 'hey you, you want weed?' 'Marijuana????' From every single tuk-tuk driver you pass, and from every moped driver who passes you (i took to pssstttttt-ing them in the end, i figured if you do it first, then they won't bother). For some reason i found this hilarious.
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