Luang Prabang day 1

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Got up at midday.

Left the guest house and it was hot but overcast.

Went to exchange some of my Thai Bahts for Lao kips, the lady at the kiosk was absolutely miserable.

Being late in the day I walked down a couple roads before finding a place to have lunch. There was a school nearby and I swear every child above a certain age has a scooter (hundreds parked in the yard) and amusingly the school run here for the really young ones consists of mum riding a scooter, holding one ghild on her lap, while the other sits behind.

Then went for a stroll along the river front which was lovely. Full of activity. At the point the sun had come out and the river front was full of people playing checkers, bowls (some french influence retained there) and a small group were even doing kariokie (they were terrible). Th river font is full of sweet french colonial buildings with oriental detailings converted into cafes, restaurants and guesthouses. Occasionally mixed in with these (esspecially down the small picturesque alleyways) there were many lovely Thai/Lao style timber stilted buildings.

I wondered down to the Wat Xieng Thong, which is the oldest (was built in 1560) in town. Its a nice timber building with intracut wall paintings remenicent of the Bayor Tamperstory, although less variety of colours.

As I left it had become quite dark and I could feel the odd drop of rain. Back in the UK you can get small droplets of rain for hours before it culminates into a light drizzle. But here its a sign that a monsoon style heavy downpour isnt far away. So I legged it to the Th Setthathirat main street nd into a small orner shop just before the heavens opened. It only lasted 20min but there were huge muddy puddles everywhere. I continued down the main street which has many upmarket restaurants and textile/woodcraft boutiques.

Th night market was just starting to set up so I checked out one or two things before heading back to the guest house for a shower and change of clothes.

Met up witht the girls again who'd been out checking temples as well.

We went out for dinner and stopped off at an all you can eat buffet vendor down one of the alleyways. This was very nice apart from being cold and vegetarian, so in reality it was ok.

Then we headed down to Hive again where we met Wil and Vicky and the Norwegians. The topics of conversation got quite serious (politics, marital Law) but was entertaining none the less.

Headed home at closing time.

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