| French Mediterranean city |
| Friday, 16 February 2007 | |
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It feels pretty strange walking in a typical french city in the middle of Laos, but Luang Prabang is as French as French cities comes. A good thing with that is that they have superb food and of course wonderful baguettes. Steaks with pepper sauce taste fantastic after months in Asia. We are staying in a little guesthouse called Xayana. It is newly renovated and really nice with an attached bathroom with hot water shower. It is quite strange in this city but everything shut down at 22.00 and it is literally a curfew for midnight at least after how we understand the rules; issued by the authorities and hanging on the walls of the hotel rooms. But ok.. not much to do in the night here anyway. Lung prabang has a very nice night market though and we end up buying souvenirs here like an elephant and a pipe... a special pipe that is ....think opium! :-) It is very kitschy and it will look very nice on the mantel. After two nights the trip goes on to Vang Vieng ( on the way to Vientiane) with minibus. We are picked up at 8.30 and taken to a minibus stop where we are placed with 11 other persons in a minibus. It is a bit cramped but ok. Taking a minibus is a bit noisy and there is no way to escape your fellow travelers travel stories of all they have done on this trip.... This gets a little bit boring after you heard more or less the same story about the same places several times from different people. Half way to Vang vieng we stop to buy something to eat in a poor village with a lot of kids begging for whatever we had to snack on. When we have approx. 100 km. left of the trip we got a flat tire. But luckily we drive in a sort of caravane with 5 minibuses and it goes easy and effective to change to the spare tire and the trip can go on. Vang vieng has a sort of wild west feel to it. But it is a place in change.. They are busy developing it and there are a lot of new guesthouses and restaurants here and even an ATM!!!. Only for MasterCard I must add. We have a lovely bungalow at the Le Jardin Organique at the riverside and it is a perfect place to relax for a couple of nights before heading on to Vientiane. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 22 July 2007 ) |
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