Luang Namtha

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So today was my last day in China. With nostalgia I took photographs of the shop signs just as I did when i first arrived in China all those days ago in Kashgar. This part of China is so different from Kashgar that it might seem foreign to a Kashgar citizen. The border crossing to Laos was very smooth. The first thing that struck me was that everything in the town here is in English. Western tourists are an important source of income here. The money here is hard to get used to - breakfast costs 20,000 kip, but that is not much. In the evening we visited the night market with a good selection of local food. The rice here is sticky rice. We tried the duck (excellent), pork, snails, crab and the crickets. Not everyone tried the crickets, but I did. It tasted better than I expected, a slight taste of salt and a crunchy texture.

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