Chilled and beautiful Luang Prabang

Hello there. So since last time I blogged we've spent about a week in Luang Prabang and travelled to Chang Mai in Thailand which is where I am now. Luang Prabang was exactly what we needed after the crazyness and partying of Vang Vieng. The place is soooo chilled out and peaceful and even has a curfew of 12am, not because of dangers but because all the locals get up to give the monks rice and banana's at 6am everymorning (one thing we meant to see but it was all a bit to early for us!). One day we went to a bar called Lao Lao, which is named after their own Laos Whiskey which is actually illegal but noone cares, and we met this local lad named 'Bobby'. It always makes me laugh when these locals are named Bobby, or that girl Tiffany in Goa! Anyway, after playing a bit of pool with him, he mentioned him and some other lads played footy everyday and asked if we wanted to play, so ofcourse we jumped at the chance and said we'd meet him the next day.

The next day we got up and went to this amazing bakery called the 'Scandanavian Bakery' for breakfast, it was so freakin' good! They did these amazing cakes and breakfasts so almost every morning we went there! That day we decided to do some some cultural things and see some temples before our football session. So we went to the temple that was sopose to be the most magnificent one in Luang Prabang (there are loads). It was really good aswell mainly because it was very different from other ones that we've been too. I've got some good pics of the buildings and inside some of the temples plus two monks holding umbrella's around the temple. After this temple we wanted to go to this 'cave temple' on the other side of the river so we sent off in search for a boat to take us across, we ended up taking the wrong boat and being quite a trek from the cave but it was kind of a blessing in disguise as the walk there was really nice. It got us away from anything touristy and was slap bang in the middle of normal Laos village life. It was incredible how just crossing the river and the it was like being in a different world. So after getting lost a couple times we finally found the 'cave temple'. This small boy took us in with a flashlight, he was hilarious, he would flash the light at different things and either say 'Buddha' or 'No Buddha', it was funny I swear! The cave was really cool though, really deep and pitch black. It was also incredibly hot in there, probably lost about a stone of sweat in that cave.

So after the cave we got the boat back across, went to our favourite noodle soup stall and went off the play footy. We met Bobby and he was excited about us 'europeans' playing with them at the stadium. the stadium ended up being a crappy pitch but still it was fun. Unbelievable how unfit I was after 5 months of no football though which was a bit hard to grasp! We played the next day also after meeting a few English lads who said they'de come play too. This time is was better, we played 7 a side and the losing team had to buy the winning team beers afterwards, I don't think they realised how competitive Jay and I can be when Beer is on the line ha! O ya and before that game they all lined up to shake hands like the pro's do, so we sang God save the queen before shook hands on off we went, it was hilarious! They must just see it on tv and think everyone does it in England or something. We had a ref and everything, it was really professional. So we smashed them up 5-1 and off we went for our beers. We laughed at that point that these guys from a 3rd world country were buying us beers haha, but to be fair they would have been too proud not to after making the bet. It was good, we went this local little place where they ordered us some food that was apparantly buffalo, it was was pretty weird but not to bad. We convinced one of the english lads, Robin, to eat a massive chilli, brilliant! I thought it was over for him, his eyes were tearing, he was going red, it was great! Everytime they brough out some more weird food Bobby would say 'don't worry it will make you stronger', apparently everything makes you stronger to Bobby which was kind of a running joke we had with him. But he promised us that we wouldn't have 'boom boom' with his girlfirend before we played football because that made you week, thanks Bobby!

We played footy one more time the next day, after this sesh our bodies were killing us to that night we went and got a Laos massage. It was so nice, wasn't too professional as the girls were talking and joking with us a lot but it was a lot of fun and did help the aches and pains a lot. Thats night we went to the night food market where we ate most nights, it was sooo good and so cheap, I got a pic of what we ate there most nights. Ussually chicken and a spring roll with noodles, rice and vegetables, good stuff, the food in Luang Prabang was really really good. Beside the food market is the main night market, it was really good here to look around and I did all my xmas shopping for my family here. One thing about Luang Prabang is that the mornings and evenings are soooo cold, compared to everywhere else we've been. Its the first time we've had to wear hoodies and jeans! So walking around the night market, you had to be really warmly dressed. But saying this, one night there was some great football on - Man City vs Man Utd, in which we smashed them up 1-0. This night I could not dress warmly because my only hoodie is a sky blue one, so I was freezing but we won so it was all good.

One night we met up with the English lads and Bobby for a beer at that Lao Lao bar and we heard there was this 'temple party' going on so we checked it out. It was a national holiday for the Laos people so the curfew was lifted and the party went till sunrise. The party was really cool because it was different to anything we've ever been to before, it was outside with games like bowls, throwing darts at balloons and best of all it was a total mix of Laos' and tourists. The bar served Lao Lao and Loas Beer and the music coming from one side was Buddhist chants and the other side was asian pop, it was surreal but really good fun. We found out that night that Bobby loves snake eggs so I got a funny video of him eating one with my commentary in the background, I'll try and get it on here. It looked disgusting but later after a few more Lao Lao's and gentle persuasion form Bobby I ate one and it wasn't too bad really. At about 3am everyone started walking out with candles in their hands so we just joined in, rather confused. It ended up being this procession around the town and back to the party, it was really cool though seeing all those candles. So a couple more hours of partying and we were off back to our guest house, Bobby had came on his scooter so we suggested he just sleep at ours but he refused and scooted away. Luckily we saw him the next day claiming he went off and drank more, he loved a story! Will miss Bobby though, definately one of my favourite people I've met travelling.

Another day we took a Tuk tuk with a bunch of other people to these amazing waterfalls, we had heard they were incredible and they really were. The lagoons you could swim in were this incredible colour of blue and the waterfalls themselves were just fantastic, you could just sit and watch for ages. We met these swedish guys that were on our tuk tuk who are doing loads of filming for some paper back in sweden, they were very serious about the seriousness of their project but what we saw them film was literally jumping off trees into the lagoons and screaming 'YEAH!' afterwards ha! But they were really cool lads and we should be meeting up for New years eve. Like I said there were these lagoons you can swim in and jump off trees into, which was probably one of the best things I've done travelling, it was like someplace out of a movie.

On the last night in Luang Prabang I walked up to the highest Temple in Luang Prabang to catch the sunset, I got these just in time and it was awesome, probably the best sunset I've seen yet, especially with the surroundings of monks, Buddhist chants, temples, mountians, it was great! Going back down the 'mountain' was amazing too, Buddha's everywhere in caves, off rocks, really nice stuff. Very glad I did that.

So now we were leaving Luang Prabang we had to decide to take the fast boat to the Thailand border, which was sopose to be dangerous and cramped but took 7 hours to get there, or the slow boat that took 2 days with a nights stay in a village called Pak Beng. It was the date we were getting there which mattered the most because when you enter Thailand without a Visa you get 30 days for 'free', so we needed it to take us till atleast Jan 3rd so we could leave Koh Phangan on the 2nd and get to Burma to renew our passport for another 30 days. So it worked out that we had to take the slow boat. Although some of the sights along the way were really nice, it was quite a gruelling and often really cold journey. The first day took 10 hours to get to Pak Beng, without stopping for food!!! We stayed there and then the next day got on another 10 hour boat, this time equipped with food, to the Thai border but it was dark so we didn't cross that day and stayed in Laos for one more night. That night at dinner we met an English girl, Aussie girl and an Israeli girl and we all decided we'de go across the border together in the morning. I was really worried about the border this time after the last crossing into Thailand but I was pleasently suprised that it went really smoothly and we didn't have to pay a penny, amazing! We all got a mini bus to Chang Mai and thats where I am now. It was the Kings Birthday recently so there are all these celebrations which are cool. So we will be doing Chang Mai and Pai in the north of Thailand before we go down to Bangkok so I'll let you know about that soon. Speak soon x

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