Luang Prabang was a very interesting place. You could really feel the French colonial history of the place, with old french signs, colonial architecture, and CREPES AND BAGUETTES from street vendors (notice how tiny alllllll of the stools are here). The weird part was seeing giant colorful Buddhist Temples in the middle of an old French promenade. We had a great time exploring, and the first night we went to the local night market to see what small variation the Lao people would put on their tourist beer t-shirts. We didn't have huge expectations for it, but the market ended up being pretty impressive. Clothes and handicrafts as well as opium pipes, old daggers and some ancient money. It was a good way to close the night out, and we were ready for our first legitimate night rest in a few days.
The boat ride was cool and I got one of my favorite pics so far from the trip, as a monk roamed out his farm on the riverside. They were a bit smaller, but they were about 100 meters wide and seemed to roll over these terraces and mangroves. Unlike any falls I had ever seen, and the best part was the swimming. There was a rope swing, and it was also in a more secluded place with a series of little bamboo bridges set up all over the falls. We hung out there for a while and then went back into town and out for a few drinks with the French girls. A great day all in all, even though it was more driving than we had hoped for.
For dinner we went to the night food market, which was situated in a little dark alleyway, with stall upon stall of food. You could get a big pile the food on as high you wanted for 1 dollar. It ended up being pretty overwhelming since every single dish on the table was fried in one way or another. Even the bread that I picked up ended up being deep fried.
The next day we had to do some serious planning for the second leg our trip. Since we had come to Thailand with one-way flights, we had to buy another cheap flight out of Thailand within 30 days as our proof of onward travel (they do this so that you cant stay forever without appropriate visas). We decided to buy a flight from Bangkok to Phom Penh, Cambodia, back in August before our actual flight. We were kinda prepared not to take the flights if we werent back in Thailand but the date of the flight was getting closer and closer, so we had to figure out how to get back down to Bangkok from Laos to catch the flights. We had originally planned to travel south through Laos to hit a tourist hotspot called Veng Viane where you can drink alot and go tubing down a river. Then we were going to go on to the capital called Vietiane. And then onto a train that would take us to Bangkok to catch our flights.
After asking around and talking to people who had done a similar itinerary, we decided against seeing those two cities, since the routes by bus had been severely slowed by mudslides. A trip of less than 400 km, from where we were staying, to the capital, took one lady 30 hours on a miserable uncomfortable bus. We also had heard that the capital was pretty unexciting and that the tubing was overrated. We liked Luang Prabang so much that we decided to hang out there for a few more days instead. We also opted to do a two day mountain bike/kayak trek out into the countryside instead of going tubing. We then booked a flight from Luang Prabang to Bangkok to make our connection. It ended up being a roundabout way of getting out of Laos, but we chose to really soak in the feel of one place that we liked alot, instead of doing a few days on buses to see a couple different places that didn't appeal to us that much.
After all this deliberation, we hung out in town and rented bikes to cover some more ground. We stumbled upon a hilarious, drunk old man down by the river who sold his homemade moonshine/snake whiskey out of tent. You can get homamade whiskey anywhere in Laos. A couple places give it out for free, as some sort of sick/twisted perk at their retaurants, but this stuff was on another level... Affectionately called Laolao. We had heard that you can occasionally find this guy selling his whiskey different places in town, so I figured I had to give it a shot, or have him give me a shot ;) His big vat of whiskey had all different types of snakes and lizards and crickets and cockroaches in it, and the man himself didn't exactly make it any more appealing. He was snot-rocketing in the tent and drooling, and reeeeeeeally drunk for 3PM, but I couldn't turn back. He poured me out a handsome triple shot, into the grittiest little glass he could find, and you can see the rest for yourself in the vid... I tried to upload a video but it was being glitchy, so itll have to wait for now.
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