Luang time still to go
Trip Start
Feb 25, 2008
1
11
22
Trip End
May 06, 2008
Luang Prabang,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Friday, March 14, 2008
NO. ta.We really must stop doing the frustrating wandering finding a guesthouse. This town feels very different from Thailand, it feels a bit South of France really which is quite nice. We end up staying in a LITERAL (caitlin and ellie) PUN! its called Wat That. it used to be a Wat and is run by part dragon part woman- its definately a trap too...you climb vertical wooden stairs to get to 'view' the room and then are so exhausted, bags obviously and stupidly in tow, that you cant be arsed to leave. its non rodenty which ticks all my boxes. easy to please with low expectations...useful out here. We have an iced coffee made by the affectionately nicknamed 'The TERROR', it was, like all caffeiny beverages out here, made with COndensed Milk so was excruitatingly sweet. but none of us had the balls to tell her. she has very little physical boundaries and almost sits on us as we perch on benches drinking them...we go to teh night market adn buy more heavy pointless stuff, which i would like to describe but alas, manyt of you will be receiving it with love on my return! sorry.
its beeen a LUANG time since our last lie in...lalala so it was bliissful, we went to do some laundry (meaning give it to someone else to was for pittance) and ate a load of fresh fruit from rthe market for breakky...it seemed only right to see a wat, so we walked all the way down the one street,a nd once we reached it we remembered our lack of decent modest shoulder coverage, so we had to walk all the way back to the lair to get some....then walked all the way back to see the 'most beautiful wat in Laos' (lonely planet sez so)...it was nice, and once the HUGGGGE french tour group left we had it to ourselves. it was dark and cold. mmmm.
We went to another wat, which was at the top of a huge hill, they psychologically get you as you have to pay, once youve got halfway up, the buggers. watched the sun set for a bit, then got bored and had a starrey think gazing over the hills...very Legolas. Accidentally bought some more market crap. sorry again.
it Rained on our third night there, which was rather inconvieniant as we were meant to be visitiing some waterfalls. opted for some caves instead, after being paraded in the back of a Tuktuk, yes i said it, TUKTUK, rather cringeworth as the driver shouted 'WATERFALLS' at every tourist, woman and schoolchild trying to drum up business. we escasped as he Chased some poor soul down teh street going 'it STOP raining SOOON'.
We bumped around in the back of a TT, with some randomers who wanted to go to the caves, which seemed like an altogetehr drier option...one of them was an investigative reporter working on bear bile farms...maybe i shouldnt have told you that, but anyway, she was one of those SLLLIIIGHTly annoying types who is all 'awww animalwanimals who have no rights...' ok. i accept that. i did make an offhand comment about all of the people who might benefit from her investigating torture. that went down like a lead ballooon. i love pushinig peoples buttons.
The caves were average, full of thousands of tiny buddha statues which was cool, but the boattrip there was so COOL! you will have to see photos cos i cant describe the beauty of it all...lovely. walked up about a million billion steps to a cave with no lights that means that all of the incredible murals on the walls are infact, pointlessly, non viewable. sat on the million billionth step while the frenchies (older and overweighter than us) staggered up clutching their chests. God i love their humour though, one of them goes (direct translation, by me, you will be proud to know) 'bloody hell' *gasps*, 'why dont they just watch the god channel, or whatever, instead of walking up all theses stupid steps'. You can tell he appreciated the culture, but it was said with a wry smile and one of those deep french menny chuckles. Animal rights woman had a go at a small child who was selling the freedom of small birds in cages, i do, in fact agree that its wrong, but come on, teh terror in this girls eyes was awful. 'ITS WRONG' she shouted. 'one dolllarrr?' the girl replied. 'their freedom is free', 'You want to FREE? oone dollarr'. Got the tuktuk back to luang prabang, went to market. whoops. can you sense a motif yet (A level english i thank thee). Packed our bags. mine has increased in weight by a kilo at least.
Our last day in laos and our third week away was commemerated at breakfast with a coffee shake.still didnt tell her about the sugaryness. we play rock paper scissors to settle the bill as we are all terrified. i lose and have to go talk to her...she was fine, although i was kind of waiting for her to hunt me down for about 3 hours after we had left...
Got a TUKTUK (cheapcheap) to the airport and sat in the outside, very novell, waiting lounge eatinig the Massive cinammon buns we'd purchased with the last of our kip. Went through, found out that despite sending at least 2kg of stuff home, my bag now weighs 15.6kg.. Hannah described going to the toilet as a 'religious experience' having done a Holy Piss with about 10 Buddhist Nuns. Pushy Pissy was flying to Hanoi with us. she was still pushy. and miserable as piss. Sat in the one gate of the airport and wrote our journals, surrounded by all of these nuns dressed in pale grey twittering away. Pushy pushed her way onto the Fokker 70 (i NO lie, our plane was a Fokker) and we eventually were seated. We got the giggles as we were welcomed onto sed Fokker, adn set of the MATURE couple next to us. off to Hanoi and Viet-naaaam...exciting,
