We never wanna leave Luang Prabang!! (except for the reunion in Taiwan, that is;) The time goes way to fast here, we've been here almost 1 week already. Tina is amazed of how different (she thinks) it is from when she was here 6 years ago. We have spent almost every night on the never ending night market that has too much stuff we want (and bought!). It has been a lot of fun stralling up and down and bargain and chat with the locals.

The first day here we went to explore the city and its surroundings (we later found out it was just a fraction of the city though) and some of the more than 30 temples, and after walking over this bamboo bridge we discovered a small village. We bought some scarfs and coffee and tea from Laos and were quite satisfied with the day. Even though the sun was cooking us alive.

Speaking of cooking: We took a cooking class the next day, this time a real one (and the cost thereby), and it was a lot of fun, but we found out that we don't really have a bright future in this area of expertise. One of the dishes we made Tina had too much pepper inside while Kine burned it "a bit". The soup we made, well it was suppose to be soup, but we forgot to put in the water at first, so it too got burned. Luckily we ate our own food so we could pretend it was marvelous ;) It was a great group of people and it was a day with a lot of fun.

The day after we went on a biking/kayaking trip. 3 hours of biking and 3 hours of kayaking. We were in so much pain the day after. After starting we soon figured out that the girl from Texas didn't know how to ride a bike. We were thinking (and partly saying): "and you thought learning it in the traffic in Asia was a good idea?" She seriously risked her life (and the rest of the group had to stop and wait every 5 minutes). The first thing she did was crashing in a parked pick-up and somehow got stuck with her wheel under it. Later she fell just in front of a truck. But luckily she safely arrived to where the kayaks were waiting. We have to give her credit for her determination. The kayaking was amazing, and we passed kids who were swimming (and splashing water on us) and water buffalos in beautiful and quiet surroundings. But the last hour we were in pain. So the day after (yesterday, ok today as well), we've been chilling and hanging around cafes, and drinking fruit shakes. Laos has btw taken the fruit shakes and baguettes to another level. We eat and drink at ever opportunity we get!

Today we got up before 6am to watch the holy ceremony where the locals give food to the monks. There are some ground rules of how tourist should behave during the ceremony, like: don't get in the munks way, don't take pictures with flash, don't participate in the ceremony (give food) if you don't believe in it, and in general you should cover shoulder and knees (all day). ALL of the rules were broken, and it was painfull to watch. We stood on the other side of the road to observe (and taking pictures without flash), but others were up in the monks' face to get a good picture. The monks had to walk around the tourist. Other than that it was (would have been) a nice experience.

Tomorrow we will go on a 2 day homestay trek to a village. We're nervous, but are looking forward to a different experience. After that we will be going south to Vang Vieng, but not sure how long we'll be staying in the famous party town.

:)