Luang Prabang

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Luang Prabang is a lovely place, really laid back and the people are really chilled. It’s certainly my most favorite place so far. The town has numerous restaurants and the night markets are really spectacular. It makes me laugh when you buy something off one of the stalls they always shake the money over the stall and say lucky, lucky and smile. They believe that it will bring them more money if they do this; every single stall holder does it though it’s so sweet to watch them.
The official national currency in Laos is the Lao Kip but in reality they use three currencies: kip, Thai baht and us dollars. This is really confusing when it comes to paying a restaurant bill or something like that in one clever restaurant we actually got the bill broken down into all three currencies and we could take our pick. In all the other restaurants if they had added it up in the currency you did not wish to pay in you could send it back or work it out yourself both ways are really sketchy because the exchange rate fluctuates daily and you have to rely on A. the bar staff not ripping you off or B. your own math’s skills.
They don’t use coins at all here and there are about 25.000 kip to the pound or something daft like that and because the kip is so unstable the prices of things can change on a daily basis.
They don’t have any ATMs here either so you have to come prepared with Baht or Dollars you can’t get any Kip until you’re in the country.
Generally larger items such as hotel bills should be paid in dollars, Meals etc, in Thai Baht and smaller items such as bottled water in Kip. We will just have figured it all out and it will be time to leave. Mark is forever counting money and the amount of notes we have at any one time is ridiculous.
We spent our days wandering around temples and sitting in parks and cafes just watching the world go by. You can’t help but feel relaxed here maybe the people are so calm because they live next to such a gorgeous river. We spent considerable time on the riverside watching the men play Bowles. They have a French influence here after they invaded but they didn’t really leave that much of an impression, they did not leave any valuable infrastructure or anything particularly useful just baguettes and Bowles it would seem. Apparently some of the older residences may well speak French though.
Luang Prabang is really small for a city and we kept bumping into people off our boat trip, it felt like we knew everyone and that feels weird when you have just arrived, maybe that’s why it feels so comfortable here. We only have two and a half days here now after the over night stop in Pak Beng and then we are catching a flight to Vientiane.

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Photos

Wonderful Temple walls
These colourful temple walls tell many stories

Comments

[Dale]

Hi there!
Dear Mark and Lesley, I've just read through your entire blog and enjoyed thoroughly, so thankyou for making the effort to record your trip. From your comments and photos, it seems that you've both had a really good time. The mountains and the river look beautiful and the temples look really interesting. I was going to ask when you were due back, but as I was reading through the blog, my mum arrived home and informed me that she was just talking to your mum (Mark's mum) and that you were due back on the 6th, so I don't need to waste comment space asking that question! Enjoy the rest of your trip and I'll see you soon. D...