This morning was time to go and do some sightseeing, especially as I had spent longer than I had expected in Vang Vieng drinking and not actually seeing any sights.

First stop was the Swiss bakery for breakfast, there were about 7 of us there, and after we had finished everyone wanted to head back to the hostel. I said that I was going to have a walk around the town and Tanya and Lauren tagged along with me. I really wanted to see the oldest temple in town, so we all walked down to Wat Xieng Thong and had a wander round the many building/temples there. One that specifically caught my eye, was the Royal Funeral Chapel which contained a 12m high funeral chariot and the exterior walls featured gilt panels depicting erotic episodes from the Ramayana.

And now for the first history lesson from Laos....

It was built in 1560 by King Setthathirath and was under royal patronage during the Kingdom of Laos. Like the royal palace, the wat was placed near the mekong. In 1880, the Tripitaka library was added and then the drum tower in 1961. This temple, along with Wat Suwannaphumaham, was spared by any damage during the sacking of the city in 1887. This was because the Black Flag Haw leader, Deo Van Tri, had studied here as a monk in his early life, and used it as his headquarters during the sacking of Luang Phrabang.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Xieng_Thong

From Wat Xieng Thong, we walked to the most northerly point in town where the Nam Khan river meets the Mekong River where we found a rickety old wooden bridge which crossed the Nam Khan river. Tanya didn't want to come over so Lauren and myself crossed over while Tanya waited for us on the other side, and just as we got across a group of young monks came across and started jumping in the water....the ideal time for a photo or two.

We still managed to get a cold Beer Laos even in this remote location.

On the way back to the hostel I popped in to the travel agents will all intentions of getting a direct bus from Luang Prabang to Hanoi. When I spoke with them I found out that the bus was not quite so direct. First I would have to travel back to Vientiane via Vang Vieng on that horrible journey I did a few days ago, which would take approximately 11 hours. Then I would have to get another bus from Vientiane to Hanoi which would take another 26 hours. Knowing that there times are always the best case times, this would make the journey a minimum of 37 hours. The cost of which was only £30.

I enquired about the flights which were direct from Luang Prabang to Hanoi and only take 50 minutes. The price was £90 which by my reckoning, of after being on a bus for 3 hours of that horrible journey, I would be kicking myself saying why didn’t I just pay £60 more and I would have been there already, while still having 34 hours left to go, and I had also heard the road to Vietnam was not a very nice road to be in a bus for.

Yes, you guessed it, I booked the flight without hesitation for 2 days time, and she even gave me a price which was still cheaper than I could have got it online as the cheapest price I found was £119. This time I was prepared as I had already researched online for some prices for flights from Luang Prabang to Hanoi, just so that I had a good idea on the price before I went to the travel agents.

In the evening before dinner, Carlos, Lisa and myself went up to the top of Phu Si, the hill in the centre of town which contained a few temples but also had a great viewpoint over the town on one side and the Mekong river on the other side. We went up there at around 6pm specifically to see the sunset across the Mekong and the mountains behind. Unfortunately for us we didn’t get a very dramatic sky that evening. We waited around to see if the sky would turn red but it didn’t so after a while we left and went back down into town.

Mount Phou Si, also written Mount Phu Si, is a 100m high hill in the centre of the old town of Luang Prabang. It lies in the heart of the old town peninsula and is bordered on one side by the Mekong River and on the other side by the Nam Khan River. The hill is a local religious site, and houses several Buddhist shrines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phou_si

Dinner tonight was another trip to the food market for a plate of noodles, rice, vegetable and a BBQ’d chicken breast.