Luang Prabang, Laos

February 3, 2014

What is there not to love about the French influenced town of Luang Prabang?  Picturesque buildings, the Mekong River snaking by, delicious bakeries, and all in the company of good friends.  Omar and I enjoyed our time in L.P. so much we ended up staying 4 days before cycling on.

Did you know the country of Laos has a 11:30 pm curfew???  Nor did we, but this whole city enforced the law - bars and restaurants all closed at 11 pm so everyone could be home by 11:30.

Our breakfast the first day overlooking the Nam Kong River which feeds into the Mekong River.

We spent a few days just wandering around this UNESCO town enjoying the views.

And more views. 

There were endless cute dining options along the Mekong River.

Just trying to give you a feel for the town.  It was lovely.  And hot.  But there were signs everywhere asking tourists to please follow Laos customs and dress conservatively - shoulders covered ladies.

The night market - a paradise for vegans and cheap bastards.  One plate of all you can stuff on it vegi food for 10,000 Kipp or about $1.25 US.

You passed your plateful to the lady who tossed it into her pan - reheating your dinner and negating your food choices as everything ended up tasting the same.  

Finding a seat in the ever popular night market.

Baguette alley - $1.25 US gets you either a giant baguette sandwich, a filled crepe, a giant size cup of coffee or a fruit shake.  This was a favorite stomping ground of ours.

Close up of a baguette alley stall and some random strangers butt.

We woke up at 5:30 one morning to see hundreds of monks collecting alms, usually balls of sticky rice from the locals and over zealous tourists.

We even spent an evening listening to the monks chant, but I didn’t think photos would be appropriate in the temple. :)

Here are some locals with their baskets of cooked sticky rice waiting for monks.  They gave rice, the food of choice, while the monks sneakily gave the women processed food, like crackers and biscuits, that uninformed tourists had given to them earlier. 

Wendy and I took a stroll through the morning market. 

Let’s play guess the food??? Look Closely.  Need a hint - look at the teeth.  Need another hint - look at the tail. Who’s hungry?

The four of us decided to spend an evening volunteering at Big Brother Mouse - an AMAZING nonprofit that creates picture books in Laos and gets them to children in rural villages.  Before this locally started nonprofit - there just weren’t picture books in Laos, let alone regular books.

www.bigbrothermouse.com

One of the volunteers projects is spending a few hours conversing with Laos people who are trying to improve their English.  There are no conversational English classes at the universities here.

We tried to go to the UXO bomb museum to learn more about the bombs dropped here in the Secret War, but it was closed on weekends.  Did you know MORE bombs were dropped in the country of Laos from 1964 - 1973 than in all of Europe and Japan during WWII combined?!?!?  And up to 30% of those 255 million bombs dropped are still active and here?!?!?  

With such precise hours I wasn’t able to visit the bomb museum, but I did buy a dove pendant made out of aluminum from bombs thanks to The PeaceBomb Project.