Luang Prabang

The weather only really cleared up on my last afternoon in LP, but the second day was at least mostly dry. On the first day after we arrived the main focus was shopping. Not me, though I did indulge, but for Tina who I was with. She's Australian and is going back to set up a shop and so was buying fabrics to create some beautiful clothes. It was fun helping someone else spend money on beautiful fabrics.

Luang Prabang is a small town full of Wats and wee novice monks running (or walking really) around in their orange robes. It looks great seeing them all around. I met a young novice aged 14 who spoke very good English. He is a WestLife fan!! I was very amused. He wanted to know if I liked them too since I was from Ireland. Should I feel proud to be Irish or not?

The day before yesterday I hired a bike and cycled all around LP. It was great just getting out a little along a dirt road and past schools and houses and people about their everyday lives. I managed to get round quite a bit. It was even fun just cycling around the main few streets in the town and watching what was going on. Very chilled.

I visited a couple of the Wats, some beautiful architecture. The Royal Palace museum also had some interesting things, especially a large mosaic on the wall that was made with inlaid Japanese glass. I also visited a photographic exhibition by a French man of people in some remote villages in Northern Laos. It was exhibited in a lovely wooden traditional style house. The wat on top of the hill (That Phou Si - Holy Hill) had a great view over the town and I sat and watched from there for a while. It gave me good bearings for the bike ride around the area.

I found a great spot which was in L'Etranger bookshop and teahouse. Upstairs from the secondhand bookshop and mini library was a wee teahouse with wooden floor and matresses and cushions on the floor. I spent a few hours here reading The Lord of the Rings! Very pleasant it was too. I went out with Jayde who I shared a room with and Tim and Rebecca (also in our guesthouse) a couple of evenings and we had fun celebrating Rebecca's birthday!

On my last day in LP I went across the river in the afternoon to visit a temple on the other side. Just across the river was a real village. Quite different from the main town. I was pleasantly accosted by a couple novice monks who became my guides and took me to the first temple (the only one I knew) and then on to another one and then even further on to some caves that I had no idea existed. One of them had the key and we went inside. The humidity fogged up my camera lense and the air was stuffy. It was fun to be in a cave just after reading about the fellowship passing through Moria!! This cave however had headless or other forms of broke Buddhas.

O enjoyed the time in LP and could have stayed a few days longer. I should probably have got a 30 day visa, but even then you can run out of time when there are great places to stay and not move from!