Luang Prabang, Laos

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Feb 5, 2008

Short flight this afternoon to Luang Prabang, Laos.
Spent the evening exploring the city night market and relaxing in this small city.

Feb. 6

City and area tour of Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang city is a Unesco World Heritage site. Lots of history here with ancient temples and the former National Palace, home for the royal family until the early 1900’s.
Visited a typical village of one of the ethnic minorities. Lots of poverty here and the economy has little to offer most people. Most are rice farmers or have small vegetable gardens and catch a few river fish. Tourism is helping with many backpackers and treckers and the government is really promoting this eco tourism business. If you’re not going first class you can travel very cheap here with “guest houses” for the packpackers and cheap meals (Ex: 60 cents for a vegetable, all you can eat buffet) from the street vendors. We took a trip to a very impressive waterfall a few miles from town and enjoyed the countryside views.

Feb 7

Today was a very nice boat ride up the Mekong river with our guide. Lots of activety on the river as usual with many farms and small villages. On this trip we saw some local gold fever at work with some gold panning workers working the river banks. Lots of fishermen with small boats and cast nets. Tough way to make a living !! We had lunch at a small village on the river near some interesting limestone caves that are used as a shrine with many images and Buddha. Very nice trip, with a shorter ride downstream back to Luang Pabrang.
Visited the local night market again. More of the same tourist stuff. Some nice carved work.

Feb 8

Visited the local morning market where all the local people shop for vegetables meat and whatever they need for the days meals. A lot of the food is cooked as some people don’t have facility in their homes to cook. This market was literally outside the gate of our hotel. You would not believe the variety of things for sale !! How about BBQ’d bats and squirrels, small birds, eggs, any kind of meat you could imagine including the tails, ears, and hooves of cows and water buffalo, a local specialty- boiled water buffalo skin, too many kinds of rice and a whole lot of vegetables and fruit. Quite the adventure visiting this market.

Makes mac and cheese look pretty good !!

Took a noon, very short flight to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, on the border with Thailand.

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