Luang Prabang, day 1

February 5, 2014. 

After a second harrowing night in Bangkok (which included my first Thai massage!), Kaley and I arrived safely at the Luang Prabang International (and tiny) Airport in Laos. Since Kaley was only going to be there for a few days, we went strolling about as soon as we got our hostel situation figured out. We were in the touristy area, congested with temples and cute little alleys and surrounded on three sides by the Mekong River and the smaller but no less gorgeous Nam Khan River.

Basically two types of buildings: old and rustic and whatnot (above), and temples (see below).

I have much better pictures of temples, but figured I should at least throw one up here for now.

Laotian doors. Or Laos doors, if you prefer. The left was taken on a temple complex and I really liked the colors and all of the stuff.

I like ceilings, you know?

The monks in Luang Prabang all wear robes in this orange color.

Cats! We found this guy hanging out with the laundry outside the temple pictured above. There was also a batch o' kittens that we played with for a few minutes before moving on.

We watched the sunset at a small strecth of beach where the Nam Khan meets the Mekong. There are two wooden pedestrian bridges that cross the Nam Khan near this merger that allow access to some smaller artisany areas of Luang Prabang. We didn't cross on our first night there, despite the slightly better view of the sunset, but decided to sit on the beach and people watch a bit. There were several small boats anchored onto the beach, but each of them left soon after to offer sunset boat trips. A handful of kids were tubing between the rocks, splashing/flailing, and being generally kid-like.

The Nam Khan River.

Where the Nam Khan and Mekong rivers meet. You can see some of the kids with their tubes on the left, and on the right, that little hut just under the trees is a little restaurant/patio place that people flock to for sunset.

Kaley in her Myanmar hat, enjoying the last light of the day. And the sand.

After reading so much about the infamous night market of Luang Prabang, we figured we should probably check it out, and it turned out to be really hard to avoid anyway since it takes up so much of that area of the city. Tents, tents, and more tents. And stuff. Lots of that, too. There was plenty of squeezing past people, and maybe a little gawking at the shirts, blankets, scarves, silverware, woodwork, and the overwhelming amount of garish touristy pants for sale. For dinner, we made our way down some food alley, where buffets were set up for a dollar a plate. We had read about that, and apparently about a million other people had read about it, as well. After squeezing in amongst the other foreigners, we dug in, and discovered...you know...buffet food. Not really overwhelmingly delicious, but great for a dollar. The dessert options at the bakery at the night market end of the alley were much more scrumptious.

One plate, one dollar.

So good!

That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you again soonish.