Day 62

Laos is pretty hot to be fair, and I fancied doing some sunbathing on that sandy boat landing to improve my tan. It will be nice to turn up to the beaches in Thailand and not look like I've just come off a 13 hour flight from Heathrow! Still, the light doesn't improve until mid-day so I used the morning to have a look around the old town. The first stop was the hill, it houses a monastery and a little temple at the top so we paid our entrance fee and walked up. I liked it, and we took a few shots before coming down to look at the old Royal Palace which was, in communist times, is now a museum. The museum was closed - annoying, but I bumped in to Samantha and Patrick - the Dutch couple I'd met in Nam Tha so we all agreed to meet later that night at a local barbecue restaurant.

1 Louang Prabang's river-side setting

Laos is one of five officially communist countries - Cuba, China, Vietnam and North Korea being the others. However, many ethnic groups in Laos live without a relationship with the government at all. A book I read the other day put it well by saying Laos is more of a communalist country. Sense of ownership doesn't really apply since Laos is one of the poorest countries of all with most of the population practicing subsistence agriculture.

2 Bjorn, Susan and me

I had an hour on the sandy beach that is the Mekong River / Louang Prabang boat landing, and was surprised to be joined by Susan and Bjorn who had been making fun of my desire to get a tan. Melissa that I had met in China was also in town so there was a little group of us there alone on the beach. It was a nice afternoon topped off with a beer or two and the barbecue restaurant in the evening.

3 The Royal Palace - now a musuem

4 Another building at the palace

5 The night market beginning