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Published: June 27th 2012
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Photo 1
Windy Road on the way to Luang Prabang Today we left the friendly little town of Phonsavan and headed off to Luang Prabang. We had organised through the White Orchid Guest House to catch a mini van to Luang Prabang. We were promptly picked up from the guest house in teh morning and after the driver had driven around collecting as many people as he could fit in his van from other guest houses and hotels we were driven to the mini bus station. The system is entirely organised for tourists and no locals were to be seen in these vans. You pretty much get assigned to a mini van and it waits until it is full and then heads off to on it's journey. This didn't take very long as the van was full within about 10 mins.
We had heard of the vans being overfilled with as many people as they can cram in. That wasn't the case with this van or the one we saw leave before us. Everyone had a seat to themselves and the luggage had been tied to the roof. Even so it was still a little bit cramped.
We met a lovely Swiss lady who was also travelling in this
Photo 2
Living on top of the highway mini van and we were to keep in touch in Luang Prabang. The German fellow we had shared the Plain of Jars trip with was also on his way to Luang Prabang with us. The journey was relatively uneventful, and although the road was windy and twisty I think there was only one passenger who felt the affects of it.
The driver was pretty good and stopped for a couple of toilet stops on the way....just on the side of the road but it was pretty secluded. We saw many other mini vans and buses travelling the same route or in the opposite direction. We also saw quite a few broken down by the side of the road, with their passengers just waiting around....both local and tourist.
The scenary was pretty spectacular and it wasn't to smoky from the burning off that occurs. We got to see a lot of local villages especially closer to Luang Prabang that precariously hung off the side of the steep inclines of the mountains. People here carried on with their lives almost on top of the road, seemingly oblivious to the whizzing vehicles no more than a couple of meteres away.
Photo 3
Rattana Guest House - Luang Prabang Our driver eventually stopped for lunch in the middle of the afternoon at a large restaurant in the middle of nowhere. It was like a roadhouse in Australia stuck out in the middle of no where except it only sold food and souvenirs...no petrol. Lunch was the usual fried rice....easy to order, deliciously tasty and quickly cooked and served. The driver too had his lunch here and patiently waited until everyone had eaten and toileted.
On the road again we reached Luang Prabang at about 4 in the afternoon. The mini vans pull into a station a fair distance out of town so everyone is forced to hire tuk tuks or transport as it is a bit too far too walk. We shared a tuk tuk into the town centre with a few others. The drivers try to charge per person rather than per tuk tuk but we were having none of that and bargained for a tuk tuk price rather then per person price. They also wanted to be paid upfront rather than after the journey but we would only agree to paying after the journey. They reluctantly agreed.
We had booked to stay at the Rattana Guest House through email. I am glad we did as some of our fellow travels spent many hours wandering around to find reasonably priced accommodation. It was the high season and a lot of the cheaper guest houses were already filled. Because we were late in arriving they had swapped our originally booked room for another. It didn't really bother us except our toilet and bathroom were now across the hall from our room rather than an ensuite.
After settling in and enjoying the air conditioning for a while we wandered around the immediate area getting our bearings and then headed off down along the river in search of something to eat. We settled on a small local restaurant right on the river, great views and very relaxing, and enjoyed another great local meal.
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