Putting our special forces skills behind us, we moved on down the mighty Mekong River on a two day boat cruise with the locals passing small mountains covered in dense jungle where hill tribe people still live in bamboo huts and subsist on the river before arriving at the old French colonial capitol of Laos, Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang still retains much of its architecture and French character from the 1800's, but the hill tribe cultures along with the Buddhist monks are now the dominant cultures that pervade throughout the town despite the rising amount of trendy stores and restaurants that are beginning to dot the scene due to the town's beauty and rising tourism.

We spent a couple days wandering the streets of this beautiful little town enjoying our French baguettes and quaint French restaurants while exploring the old Buddhist temples. However, the highlight of Luang Prabang was the markets. In the mornings, the hill tribe villagers would come to town with their vegetables, fruit, and meat from their farms in order to sell or to barter and trade for what they needed. The markets contained nearly every fruit, vegetable, and animal part imaginable, and later in the day, the street vendors would set up their stalls and fry all sorts of things from bugs to pigs' head for us to try. We decided to delve into the culture and tried various parts of pigs and chicken including chicken's feet, head, and heart. Everything was fried, so the taste did not differ among the pieces, but some of them were pretty hard to choke down just by the thought of what we were eating.

After being stuffed with all the strange street delicacies and fearing the ensuing aftermath on our stomachs, we would grab some French baguettes and stroll through the brilliant night markets. The entire downtown street would close off every night and the people of Luang Prabang and the people from all around would come set up their little red tents all down the street and the would sell lanterns, hand carved wood and stone objects, pipes, t-shirts, and even have snakes and scorpions sealed in bottles of local moonshine to take home and either brave a shot or give to your friends for a fright.

Not wanting to leave, but being pressed for time, we then moved South to a town, Vang Vieng, known only for backpackers going tubing down a little river and then on to sleepy Vientiane (the current capitol of Laos) to sort out our visas and move on for a second try to enter Vietnam. Laos was an intriguing and fun country, but I am sure that as we move on to Vietnam we will be just as intrigued given our history with this small Asian country. Till next time, Cheers.