A not particularly well deserved rest!

Its difficult to imagine I'm still in Laos, though LP is a small and quiet place it sticks out like a sore thumb when compared to the rest of Lao I've seen so far.
The reason for this is its French influence from the colonialisation (not sure if that's a real word!) in the 1940's and this combined with the towns long political and religious history (many seriously ancient temples and watts) creates a unique architectural and cultural mix.

Its really touristy but in a tasteful way with pleasant cafe's lining the streets but this has caused the town to be fairly expensive when it comes to eating and sleeping. There's still some bargains to be had though. the Barbecues and baguette stands do a roaring business with us scrimping travellers.

Local waterfall is blue in the dry season... its not the dry season!

I've far from scrimped this week though, after a weeks travel and trekking I decided to sack off trying to be frugal for a few days and lived it up a bit with a big comfy bed, lovely clean bathroom and TV for the princely sum of $11 a night. That's about twice my budget so i'll have to spend a few nights on the street to compensate.

One of many watts and extremely blue sky!

Done very little other than chill out these last four days, went to some local waterfalls which where really nice despite the bad weather, infact the extra water made them all the more impressive. There where a couple of pools in which you could swim and blue shelled freshwater crabs kept scuttling out from under the bushes. Roaming the streets has been another enjoyable pastime in the nicer spells of weather, the local monks strolling around with the brolly's useful for the scorching sun as well as the rain. Also been enjoying the Laos coffee, its pretty strong stuff, not quite an espresso but half way there at least, this is more than compensated for by the large mugs its served in.

Really hot today. I have a bus this evening heading east. I'm not really sure what i'm doing taking a 17 hour bus to the Vietnamese border, apparently there's some amazing scenery that not many tourists see because its a bitch of a bumpy road... sounds like a sleepless night ahead.

written by

Dan on August 21, 2008 from Luang Prabang, Laos

from the travel blog: Been there, Dan that!

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