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Published: January 7th 2014
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The cruise left me with a sense of bliss and tranquillity, I’ve found my hostel and I’m very happy with it. It’s a good start to my trip in Luang Prabang. It’s my first day here and I’ve found its pleasant and a very easy place to walk or cycle around. It’s a refreshing place and it has a French or swiss village feel to it with mountains surrounding it. It’s cool weather which is what you need in Asia when you are travelling. Asia’s not like Europe where you can see two museums on one day, get an in depth view od thousand of years of history by just following the museum explanations written in perfect English. Here there are more temples, and things to see rather than history to explore. Oh and the time it takes to see a whole museum in Glasgow, is about the time it takes to cross a road in Thailand. Here you need patience and not to expect to control the world around you.
I changed $40 into Lao kip. It’s about 7,500 kip to the dollar so you can imagine that now I’m walking about like the Godfather with a
briefcase full of notes. I got ripped off by $10 and I had to go back to the booth. She apologised immediately, explained she had mistaken a 20,000 kip note for a 200,000 note and gave me the correct amount. I hope it wasn’t deliberate.
The National Museum of Laos was good but it didn’t have a lot of explanations and it was more visual. There were mainly royal clothes on display from the Lao king who died about 20 years ago and wasn’t succeeded. There were statues of Buddha, wood carvings and silk which are Laos main exports. There were a few royal bedrooms which were very understated compared to the ones that belonged to the Thai Royal Family. The king of Lao spoke thai and French.
There was a temple next door and inside there was a Prabang Buddha, cast in Sri Lanka in 1AD and given as gift from the king of Sri Lanka to the Lao people. Luang Prabang got its name from this statue. I also learned that all Buddhist men are tattooed, that Naga (the dragon) is the symbol of the kingdom. I learned that the French had
a big influence on Laoa, most signs are written in French and elderly people still talk French. I learned that Laos and the US have a wonderful relationship (yeah right!) Amongst the gifts from other countries to Laos were american gifts which surprised me. The US astronauts flew the Lao Royal flag from the royal kingdom and put it on the moon.
In the afternoon I stopped at a nice restaurant, had a pizza and a traditional Lao tea (in the picture) whilst reading Le Monde newspaper from France. I found out lots about Europe and all the news that the UK doesn’t give us access to. The rest of the day I decided to be sensible and not leave the hostel until 10.30pm to celebrate New Year, but me being sensible didn’t last for very long.
I said bye to the hotel manager, wished him happy New Year and said I would see the countdown and be back for 12.30 soon after the midnight curfew. I headed out to walk to the centre to see the countdown at the market but on the way I bumped into a Canadian lady (we met at
breakfast in the hostel just before we left for the boat trip, in the same hostel I met Daniel and Martin.) As we were both travelling alone (something very rare for females in Asia) we decided to exchange email addresses and meet up later on in the trip, which we did by chance. She was with 2 other femaie friends and they were heading to Utopia, the best club in town for ferangs. I decided to join, the place was stunning, outside, all lit by fairy lights and fires, decked by lots of palm trees. We ordered some cocktails and Lao beer and chatted about what had brought us there.
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