Luang Prabang

Such a pleasant and wonderful experience.

I think I fell in love with its simplicity and flair of Asian and French/Euro architecture and lifestyle..making any sense? No? I'll explain if you message me.

Anyway, Luang Prabang or LPQ is a World Heritage Site for its 30 or so temples which is insane for how small the ton really is...you could bike it in about 2.5 hrs which we did. Although we didn't see lots of temples since I was templed out, we did see one important one. So I guess that was good. The town is just filled with lots of cute little cafes, restaurants, which made me happy; but at the same time, it was difficult to ignore some things. There were these times where I felt just how poor the country was and it's just crazy how they don't care or don't let it effect their living. It makes me really guilty on how much I spent (wayyy more than I should of that's for sure), but at the same time, I'm buying all these local products the people are making so I'm contributing in one way.. I'm not sure how to take it.

The money though was a pain in my ass. Because I'm using the Baht and not the Dollar, things were more pricey. The Laos Kip is not worth much..not even banks outside of certain border towns of Laos will take it, but yet everything seemed to be really expensive. 1 dollar was about 8000 kip, and 1 baht was 250-260 kip. Most things were based around 10,000 kip and up. sooo you can imagine how much I spent in the 5 days 6 nights we spent there.

Just how friendly the people were made it that much easier to fall in love. Despite the many foreigners around (I didn't think LPQ was a popular tourist destination), it was great to get out of Thailand and see something new and experience something else.

Oh and in my time there, we went on a tour of the Pak Ou caves which is an ancient temple built into a cliff that now houses thousands of Buddha statues. We took a trip to a nearby waterfall despite the rain, and it was amazing! And mostly we just wandered down some random streets, hung out at cafes and bookstores, and pretty much went to the night market almost every night since it was in the center of town and a block from our guesthouse. 

breakfast at Jomas

LPQs version of a tuk-tuk

Pak Ou entrance

Morning Alms

Sketch Bridge

Bear Sanctuary

Tat Kuang Si