Luang Prabang

28/08/08 Thursday Day 14 Goodbye Thailand, Hello Laos
Not much happened today either. Got up, had breakfast, packed the bags and went off to the airport around half 11.Our flight wasn’t until 3.05pm but there was no point in walking around Chiang Mai with the back packs. We’d be like sitting ducks with everyone shouting “Taxi Sir” or “Tuk Tuk Sir”. Chiang Mai airport is nice alright. The international terminal isn’t very big at all. The could badly do with a restaurant there. There only food there was ice cream from Dairy Queen, chocolates from the duty free or taytos from another tiny mini mart!
The flight was grand, small enough plane like one of the aer arann ones back home. Only took an hour which was grand. Otherwise it would have taken around 3 days by bus and slow boat! Got our visa at the airport which was about the size of the one in Kerry. Found our guesthouse easily enough and took a walk around the town then. This place should be know as the town with the guesthouses. Every second building is a guesthouse. And there was no need to book either because as we were walking with our backpacks people came running out of their own guesthouses asking if we wanted to stay.
The town is nice with French like buildings and there’s loads of restaurants here so no problem with food! And there’s another huge market here selling mostly silks, bags and general crafts or crap really.

29/08/08 Friday Day 15 Kinda like Puck Fair
There must be some kind of fair or festival on today cause the place is full of stalls. They must have sprung up over night. It’s like Puck Fair only much bigger and much rougher. There seems to be a street of blow-ins and a street of regular traders cause the blow-ins were a bit rough looking! Not much decorum! Not a lot either to say for today. Just did more walking around the city. It’s a town really cause you can walk it in half a day! Got our bus to Vientiane, flights from there to Hanoi in Vietnam and also our Vietnam visa sorted today. I think we were probably ripped off on every one of those purchases. There’s right cool pictures of the bus that we’re “supposed” to get tomorrow morning at 8am. Can’t wait to see if that’s true or not. The Lonely Planet book says that there’s not reserved seating on the bus. You just get there early yet when we bought our ticket at the travel agent, right there on our receipt is seat number 21 & 22 all for us.
There doesn’t seem to be any kind of decent shop here. It’s all people trading out of their back kitchen so to speak!
There taxi drivers as a bit annoying here but not too annoying. You still can’t go pack them without them saying “taxi sir”. There’s nothing like “taxi madam” or “taxi lady”. It’s all about the man here!
Went to see the museum of the grand palace which was another rip off. The trip around the palace took about 15 minutes for 30000 Kip which is about 2 euro 50 in old money! We’re on a budget here people!
Walked a load of steps up a big hill in the middle of the town to see yet more temples, and Buddha’s. There’s a fine view from up there though so at least that was good!

---

---