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Other entries in Luang Prabang

Oh Please Don't You Rock My Boat!

The trip from Pak Beng to Louang Prabang was much the same as the previous day with a couple of noteworthy differences: 1)  The boat was much smaller, probably about a 70-seater, but there was the same number of people aboard (at least 100).  Now the boat trip was not only boring, it was also uncomfortable;  2)  The river's banks and beaches were scattered here and there with goats, dogs and even cows.  This provides evidence that cows do sometimes hang out at the beach after all! and 3) According to the ticket inspector, we were in constant danger of capsizing - I will elaborate this point.

The woman conductor (or conductress even) made me move to the other side of the boat - this'll make you laugh - to balance the boat out!  I was both gob-smacked and insulted as this happened no fewer than 3 times.  I was clearly crucial to the dynamics of the boat and, whenever I stood on the left of it, was causing imbalance.  How 1 person weighing 90kg can make enough difference to upset a fully-laden boat, weighing an estimated 8 tonnes, is beyond me...........and the laws of physics!  Anyway, now I was bored, uncomfortable, embarassed (everyone on the boat had seen this), vexed and too far away to talk to my recently made friends.  Everyone found it very comical.  Everyone except me!  To make matters worse she replaced me with not one but two Lao women.  I admit I'm not the smallest person in the world but I do not weigh more than 2 adult women!  It wasn't until Jo mentioned that she thought the conductress had a thing for me and was taking the p.... - micky out of me that I started rebelling.  I felt like a bit of a prat - it all seemed so obvious now - but good on her for getting one over on me.....(and then some)!  Just goes to show that even a nation that was a French colony can still have a sense of humour!  (The French couldn't have influenced them that much then....luckily!)

There is no link to this next point so I won't bother trying to think of one: the Lao customs (similar to the other countries in South East Asia) are a bit weird.  For example: it is forbidden to show any form of affection in public.  As a sign of respect, you must take your shoes off before you enter a temple (OK), someone's house (OK), and most shops (eh?), and one should always "keep clean" to avoid being laughed at.  It seems perfectly acceptable, however, to belch in someone's face and cough up some sort of nastiness in their ear.  Jo, the poor girl, found these things out first hand and within about 5 minutes of eachother.

We arrived at Louang Prabang at sunset and did the usual food, drink, bed.  To cut costs I shared a room with Damian, a Scot (complete with kilt), who we met that day on the boat.

There's not a lot to do in Louang Prabang.  There are lots of temples, but they're hardly what I call "exciting".  There's also a waterfall that every tuk-tuk driver seemed to want to take you to but after the one's I'd seen in Thailand I wasn't bothered about seeing any more so soon.  So I spent the next couple of days walking round town, taking in the great scenery and eating surprisingly good Indian food (as good as, if not better than some of the curry houses at home)!

In the evenings we'd all meet up for dinner by the river.  Despite my (failed) efforts to convert the girls to meat-eaters, and many heated discussions about vegetarianism - Steve, where were you dude?  They were having none of the "there are 10 essential amino acids in meat that can't be synthesised or found in veg." - I thought I was getting on quite well with Jo (who was amazing by the way) and fancied my chances.  That is, until Damian took advantage of her "tiredness" and ended up snogging her.  Git!

On this particular night we left the girls' room at about 01:45 and started the long walk back to ours.  I was astonished at how quiet the place was.  It was like a ghost town and the whole way home (about 20 minutes walk) I think we only saw 2 locals and 2 foreigners.  It was at this point that Damian pointed out that the town has a curfue of midnight and anyone caught by the police after this time would be seriously fined or even detained.  We started walking faster....

On my last day there I decided to do a circuit of the town.  After about 3 miles of walking, I noticed that my circular route was much more linear than I'd intended and had been walking out of town into the countryside for at least an hour!  I decided to go back the way I'd come.  My blisters were a reward for tying to be smart and walk round a town that not only did I not know in the slightest, but that I didn't even have a map for!

That night, after we'd eaten, we got stopped whilst on our way back to the guesthouse by 5 or 6 local old men.  They invited us to join them for a drink and so we sat down on seats beside the river, rather randomly, next to a monkey on a chain.  At first the monkey was rather amusing: climbing on us, playing with us (I had "rabies" - or worse still "Outbreak" - in the back of my mind the whole time and didn't really get too close) and generally making us laugh.  After a while though it became apparent that he really wasn't happy being there and his repeated attempts to leap free of the chain were quite pitiful.

The old guys handed out shots of this very potent rum/whisky.  You know that something's going to be unbelieveably strong when it's urine-coloured and being served out of a Pepsi bottle!  It tasted rancid - the closest I can imagine anything tasting to petrol!  Of course it would have been an insult to refuse the shots that followed so we stayed for a bit, playing with the poor, chained-up monkey, until we'd finished the round of beers that Jo had kindly bought everyone and then headed back to the rooms.

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