laos, baby, laos

we spent about a week in laos, mostly in luang prabang (http://wikitravel.org/en/Luang_Prabang). luang prabang is a world heritage city and is beautiful. there are a ton of temples and the french colonial influence has been preserved.

our first day was spent getting acquainted with the small town. we treated ourselves to a french bread pizza (not quite like the ones at fry's, but it did the job). i tried the country's beer - beer lao and was pleasantly surprised. it wasn't as light as it's cambodian or indonesian counterparts. we wandered through the night market, which was full of beautiful goods. mom, you would have been in heaven! no photos, but this guy's site has a few: http://www.pbase.com/jtodhunter/luang_prabang_night_market.

the next day, tuesday 11/18, we moved hotels to a great guesthouse - xang keo. chad, the owner, was very friendly and helpful. we then found a wonderful bakery, JoMa, which we would frequent several times during our stay. our adventures continued trying to do several things which ended up being closed. the palace just happened to be closed on tuesdays, but our guidebook failed to mention that! we then tried to catch the end of the produce market and missed that one as well! we also looked for a couple textile and jewelery stores, but the map was wrong. eventually we haphazardly stumbled upon the textile gallery and store (fibre2fabric: http://www.fibre2fabric.org/index.html) and got a wonderful education about local textiles.
dinner was a delicious vegetarian buffet at the market. we spent the evening at martin's pub watching monty python and the holy grail. before calling it a night, we found a wonderful crepe lady on the street and shared a delicious banana and nutella crepe. it was a good night!

wednesday (11/19) started with a wonderful french breakfast with tasty pastries and breads. we then hopped on a slow boat towards the pak ou caves (http://www.laostravel.info/Cave/index.htm). we stopped at a village known for making rice whiskey, ban xang hai, and tasted the strong stuff. it was a bit much early in the morning, but fun nonetheless! the caves contained hundreds of buddhas and was very crowded with tourists. it was an interesting experience, but not quite what we had expected. we grabbed a quick lunch upon returning to town before heading on an afternoon excursion to the kuang si waterfalls (http://www.asiaexplorers.com/laos/kuangsi-waterfall.htm). i'm really bummed we don't have these pictures, as the falls were so beautiful! there were a handful of pools on the way up to the big falls that were a beautiful blue. we took an awesome hike up to the top of the falls and across the top before heading down the other side (which turned out to be the real trail, but we love adventure!). it was an awesome afternoon and we wished we had spent the whole day there rather than just the afternoon. if you're ever in luang prabang, pack a picnic lunch and go for the whole day! back in town, we tried out some tasty fresh young coconut juice and walked through the market. another nice day!

thursday, 11/20, we rented bikes and headed out to the textile village of ban xong khong. we managed to find our way there despite not having a map! yay for signs! double yay for signs in english! we found beautiful textiles and were treated to a detailed description of the whole process, from silk worm to final product. it was great. we had a late lunch at the market and it was so tasty! we followed that with some wonderful massages. this time i had a traditional lao massage (which had similar elements to thai massage) and joe got a kamu massage. we were giant bowls of jello afterwards. we met up with a couple university students, soumly and khamphou, we had befriended on our cave trip and headed to dinner. we had a great time eating and chatting. the ladies were such troopers with their english! we learned a bit of lao and about lao lifestyle. it was a great time and we were so stuffed by the end of dinner!

friday, 11/21, we slept in. yay! there's nothing better than a good sleeping in day. we booked our slow boat tickets to the thailand border, hit up the produce market and of course enjoyed a tasty coffee beverage at JoMa's. from there, we hit up the palace and museum. pictures weren't allowed, so you're not missing any of those! it was choc-full of history and presents given to the royals from other countries. the us gave them a really nice pen set. :) from there we went to one of the most beautiful temples we've seen, wat xieng thong (http://www.williamzhang.com/Asia/Laos/Luang%20Prabang%20Wat%20Xieng%20Thong.htm). the glass mosaics cast such beautiful patterns in the sunlight, we wish we had our photos to show you. we spent quite a lot of time there and really enjoyed ourselves. we enjoyed another buffet dinner at the market before hitting up the night market again.

we woke up early on saturday (11/22) and headed down to the slow boat. we spent the entire day on the boat and arrived at pak beng around 6:30 in the evening. the ride was nice and calm, which was great. we read, slept and played cards. the view of the mekong was quite beautiful. all in all, it wasn't a bad way to travel.

sunday, 11/23, was pretty much the same as saturday. we took the boat from pak beng to huoy xi and arrived about 6:30pm again. :) we arrived too late to cross the border, so that happened monday morning.