After five days in Luang Prabang I think I've done just about everything there is to do here. Actually, that is a complete lie. I haven't done anything here. I was too cheap to pay the 20,000 kip (not even $3) to see the main palace, or Wat Xieng Thong, the main temple of the city, or the wat at the top of the hill that overlooks the town, called Wat Phou Si (pronounced "What p**** . There is also a p**** hotel and at least one p**** restaurant. Heh heh.). To be fair though, there are an awful lot of wats here in Luang Prabang. Like, more than ten. Maybe even twenty. Certainly less than thirty. And most of them are free to wander around in and get your photo fix and smile at some saffron-robed monks. One of whom I watched pierce a wine bottle with a slingshot down on the beach yesterday afternoon. (Not the kind of beach you're thinking of—more like sandy shoreline of the Mekong). Even a monk's gotta get his kicks somehow.

Other things I did not do in Luang Prabang include the perfunctory Mekong sunset boat cruise, minority village trek, and caves tour. I didn't even rent a bicycle for Christ's sake. Come to think of it, I don't think I've even met a single person in my time here in Luang Prabang, or held a conversation that went for more than one sentence, other than ordering food. And you know what: I liked it. That's travel for you.

What I did do was walk around a lot, sit reading for hours on end in the city's many (relatively) inexpensive French cafés, eat a lot of Lao baguettes, drink a lot of fruit shakes, and have beef noodle soup with a Beer Lao for dinner just about every night, at a different place each night, just because I could.

It has come to my attention that I may be the worst, or rather the laziest, traveller ever. While most of the young twenty-somethings were tubing down the river in Vang Vieng, I was taking an afternoon nap after polishing off some Calvino with lunch (read: brunch. Second breakfast.). Actually, the tubing part is another lie: nobody, hardly anybody, tubes down the river in Vang Vieng any more, not since the bars were torn down, now in the process of being replaced by high-end hotels—bewilderingly, today it's all kayaks and middle-aged Korean ladies.

Oh—and Luang Prabang itself. Well, the fact that I spent something like five days here should be enough. It's a great spot, what can I say, come and see for yourself. Lots of stupas, monks, palm trees; lots of French colonials villas. Although, not many are actually lived in in a traditional sense these days: most have been—tastefully, for the most part—converted into boutique hotels, cafés, shops, restaurants, massage parlours, and more hotels. It's getting to the point where soon the foreigners will outnumber the locals. I read that, on average, a new guest house opens here every 18 days. But for now it still retains much of its old-time charm, tourists withstanding. Especially at dusk. Along with Hanoi, Luang Prabang has to be one of the most beautiful cities in Indochina, if not all of Asia. (And also like Hanoi, it was miraculously untouched by American bombs during the Vietnam War). I'd say a lot of the city's charm, though, has to do with its size. Luang Prabang is tiny. Even calling it a 'city' feels a little out of place. When sundown comes to Luang Prabang, walking the dusky streets alone, it's old world, baby: the mystique of the Oriental night. Smokey, sultry, a little piece of magic from a time that's mostly gone from our day and age. And it's a piece of magic that becomes that little bit smaller with every passing day.