Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
What a beautiful town Luang Prabang was. The town itself is listed as a world heritage site and you can see why. Really cool old low rise buildings in a hillside setting with the Mekong river flowing through. Nice. The Spicy Laos hostel turned out to be just as good if not better than the Spicy Thai hostel. Pong, the proprieter (what an unfortunate name) really made everyone feel at home and he went out of his way to get everyone out and about be it on day trips or for dinner and drinks in the everning. He even threw on a Laos history lesson at the hostel one evening. Another day he took the hostel patrons to a cool waterfall just out of towm. Some great pictures from that. I'm not sure what was more enjoyable though, the waterfall or the trip there and back sitting on the roof of the songthaew (open mini bus). Laos has weird licensing laws which I'd heard about from fellow travellers already. The bars shut soon after 11 which means the only place open selling booze after this hour is the local bowling alley. You may not be surprised to read then that I don't think I have bowled as much anywhere as I have in Luang Prabang and Laos in general. Every night at the bowling alley everyone from the boat trip seemed to meet up there again. Some great nights were had but I still cannot bowl to save my life.
James, Christina and I met Stef and Lina (also from Germany) during our time in LP and we decided to head off on a trek outside of the city for 3 days (more on that in the next exciting blog). On our last night though Pong decided to arrange a huge Spicy Laos party. He had headbands, face paints and a lot of cheap booze to keep
everyone happy. Lauren and Esther (who I'd met in Chiang Mai) also made an appearance at the party. Seeing as we were going our separate ways in the morning we decided to have a big send off at the bowling alley. I regretted that decision the next morning when I woke at 6 am with a 50 km cycle and a half day of trekking ahead
of me....to be continued...
