We woke up in Luang Prabang this morning, in our lovely villa called Champa. Champa is the Lao (and Hawaiian) flower; see picture.
We feel like we're on holiday here, opposed to backpacking, as it resembles somewhere like Fethiye in Turkey, minus the harbour. It's full of English/Americans/Canadians/Europeans, has a main busy long street with cafe's, restaurants, tour operators, stalls, a night market.
It's very nice.
After a very slow morning lounging around, we made it to brunch around 11:00am. A bakery/cafe called The Tables. For about 50/60,000kip (£4.50) you get a cracking meal! I had a vegetable omelette which came with half a French stick, a very tasty spicy salsa, fries, cucumber, tomatoes and a bowl of exotic fruits! Olly somewhat similar.
We then strolled for several hours around the city, taking pit-stops in every temple, museum and market. The temperature is actually unbearable today. Around 35degrees celsius, and the humidity is about 85% with no breeze....HELL. By 3:15pm we were done in and ringing wet! We took a break in a little book cafe called Letranger, meaning books and tea. It was a great little place. We had an iced ginger tea here.
On the walk back to our villa we booked our bus journey for Tuesday night to Chaing Rai in Thailand.
Dinner consisted of the night food market.....so cool! Whilst on the move we ate vegetable and meat dumplings, chicken skewers, a huge thick pork spicy sausage and some spring rolls. When sat down we ate a beef pho and a plate of everything and anything.
Whilst walking back from the food market we were sucked into the night market shopping :-/
I spent $5.50 on a funky bright-blue pair of elephant baggy travel pants (yes, I look like a hippy lol), and my Laos bracelet :)
We moved on to an ADORABLE restaurant/bar called The Mango Garden. It was SO pretty! Ivory growing and climbing on all walls and ceilings. Fairy lights, as the main source of lighting, scattered the roofs.
Beers all around, until we were kicked out at 10:30pm....the norm in Lao lol! Villages just seem to shut down!