Luang Prabang, Laos, Asia

I got up this morning and watched the first half of the Cowboys vs Jets game while I packed up my stuff to leave Vang Vieng. I grabbed a quick breakfast sandwich at a local cafe and waited for my taxi to bring me to the bus station. It was supposed to come at 8:30am to get me there for a 9am bus. A taxi never came, just two mini vans. One was a nice big new one, and the other one was mine. Two English girls and I had a mini van to ourselves and headed straight to Luang Prabang from the hotel.

It was a ridiculously bumpy ride up through the mountains, but we were very lucky. We passed straight through a couple of landslides, but never had to stop at any of them. It is meant to be a seven hour drive, but I talked to some people who had done the same journey and it took some as long as 22 hours to get there. If you get stuck at a landslide, sometimes you can be there for 12+ hours just waiting for the road to be cleared enough to drive through. I got very lucky. In 6.5 hours we arrived in Luang Prabang, and still had plenty of daylight with which to go search for a place to stay for the night.

The van driver dropped us off right in the center of the town so within minutes I’d stumbled upon loads of guesthouses. I found one called Somjith Guest House that was offering a single room for 60,000 kip ($7.50) per night, so I nabbed it. It’s a pretty good deal for a single room with a private bath, fan and TV. The temperature up here isn’t nearly as high as it has been other places, so A/C isn’t completely necessary at night. I got comfortable in the room and then headed out to see what this town was all about.

It’s an incredibly small town, but very charming. You can see a lot of the French influence in the buildings and streets around here. Even some of the temple signs and offices have the names written in French as well as Laotian. I stopped in a couple of bars and had a beer and saw what kind of vibe this place has. It’s very relaxed and so different from the rafting-and-getting-drunk atmosphere down in Vang Vieng. There’s a huge night market so I walked through that but because I’m carrying my backpack for another two months, I never really buy souvenirs to bring home. I did manage to find a LAOS patch to sew onto my bag though, so that’s good.

I grabbed a sandwich in town (they love their French baguettes here) and came back to the hostel to eat. There’s not much going on in town besides the market, so I’m just going to hang out here for the night. I am totally psyched that I just found out that the Patriots vs. Dolphins game is going to be on TV here in the guest house in the morning. I’m definitely getting up at 6am for that. I’m so excited that football season is starting again!