Luang Prabang. 6-11th jan

8th Jan A two night stay has turned into five nights. Our guesthouse really does offer an amazing breakfast including endless coffee and finishing off with the cake. Why wouldn't we stay five nights! The room also has quirky design features incorporating Ock Pop Tok fabrics which incorporates traditional Lao designs but presented in a contemporary fashion. I'm a big fan! Although it's more expensive than we generally pay, it's nice to stay somewhere decent.
Luang Prabang has also become a favourite city. It is a city but it's like a very small town really. Like Hoi An, it's just a nice laid back place to wander and take life slowly. Something we do rarely, both at home and whilst travelling. We just looked at our spreadsheet and realised that in four and a half weeks in China, we stayed in fourteen places and on two night trains. Basically we'd move on every two days or so. Since Hoi An, the pace has slowed considerably.
There are also lots of nice restaurants and cafes in Luang Prabang so we aren't paying much attention to the budget. Within a few hours of arriving, we decided to treat here a bit like a holiday rather than travelling. Even then we can eat at nice restaurants for around £10. The exception is the adventurous Lao degustation menu we have booked at Tamarind tomorrow night. That's costing us £35. We've also booked into the cooking course at Tamarind this evening. We know a lot about SE Asia food but not Lao cooking so it will be nice to extend our repatoiur.
There are thirty temples in Luang Prabang and therefore, a lot of monks. This morning we got up at 5:30am to watch the alms giving. This is of very spiritual importance to the local Buddhist people and it is a tradition which should be respected. We dressed appropriately, turned off the camera flash, found a place to sit back and watch discreetly. Even then I felt a little uncomfortable. Unfortunately the dozens of other tourists didn't quite pay it the respect it deserves. There were women (travellers in their early twenties) in little shorts, people walking next to the monks flashing their cameras, people stood above the monks ( a big no no), and hoards of Chinese and Japanese tourist groups partaking but buying low grade rice from street vendors ( another big no no. If it is of meaning and you want to take part, at least get high grade rice from the market. We were offered rice several times but it felt a mockery to take part, even if we have spent significant time embracing and respecting Buddhist culture on our travels). Such a shame that something so traditional has become a circus.
Tomorrow we are off cycling and kayaking to nearby waterfalls. I will finally get to my yoga class on Sunday morning. The intention was to go after the alms giving this morning but I got sidetracked by a latte and blueberry and almond tart! That was before returning for fruit, yoghurt, fresh hot baguette with jam and butter, omelette and more cake!

The cycling and kayaking was just ok. The guide was a 23 year old lad who had been out the night before, got so drunk he fell off the motorbike as his wife rode home and as such was rather hungover and in a bit of pain. I'm not the best cyclist in the world but even I found it easy getting up the hills. He was struggling and thought us both superfit.
It was even more comical when it came to the kayaking after lunch. His kayak had a hole in it so he had to stop every so often to empty all the water out. He finally recovered sufficiently from his hangover to eat his fried rice lunch whilst kayaking. He sort of mis-timed it though.
We were approaching faster flowing water and a bamboo bridge which we were heading towards at pace, with Laotian families bbq-ing at the water edge, drinking beer and generally enjoying their Saturday.
I finally asked if we were meant to detour around the bridge or go underneath it. The panic on his face as he looked up from his rice and quickly started paddling trying to right his kayak. He bumped his way through the water, soaking his rice in the process. We meanwhile cruised behind him.
When we returned from our exertions we rested and then headed our for the adventurous Lao tasting, treating ourselves to a bottle of wine too. This was extremely useful at washing down the slightly too adventurous food. We ate eel, snake, rat, guinea pig, tadpole, raw river shrimp, crispy bugs, raw fish and whole frog. Yes, whole frog. Head, arms, legs, all intact. Eating that was a challenge! The guinea pig tasted smokey from barbecuing, the snake had no meat once you'd taken the bone out, the bugs were rather nice, like those I had in China. We had a good go at everything although we didn't really enjoy it! The starters however had been lovely.

On our final day we did very little. LPB was even quieter than usual as the main road is closed to traffic on a weekend. After a leisurely breakfast we meandered to the Royal Palace Museum, and found it closed. We then headed for iced coffee and then walked a bit more for some lunch. We had a late afternoon snooze and then headed out for a final mooch around the city. The yoga, museums, massage or sunset cruise never happened. Very lazy. We are getting rather good at getting into the Lao pace of life!