Not much to report today. Our main mission was to get our visa for Vietnam arranged. Our guest-house obligingly pointed out the consulate on the map and instead of paying the $5 commission we decided to take a walk (tak-tak was recommended – but we like to walk).

Luang Prabang is a wonderful little spot. You can walk around the entire town in two hours (and it’s the second largest city in Laos !). Full of western coffee shops, restaurants, galleries, curio shops, guest-houses and wats it is an easy, quiet and inviting place. Another thing is the 23h30 city curfew which, strictly enforced, guarantees a good nights sleep.

We stopped at a little coffee shop (Saffron) on the Mekong river bank for a quick breakfast and fantastic local coffee before heading around the back of the town’s koppie in search of the consulate. $45 each for the visa (3 day processing time) meant that the price has gone up and that we would be here until Monday. On the way back we explored a couple of wats, perused some ‘for sale’ buildings and skimmed the restaurants.

We returned to the main side of town via the wat on top of the koppie. Seems walking at altitude in Tibet hasn’t improved our stair climbing abilities 🙂 The wat encompasses outdoor shrines and stupas with lots of gold (mostly paint) along with a grotto containing ‘The footprint of Buddha’. Depending on where his other extremities are he may be good at twister ! We particularly liked the ‘snagon’ (snake like dragon) handrails.

You can’t go long here before bumping into someone you know and by lunch we had arranged a 1/2 day MTB, 1/2 day kayak trip with Arna and Nick. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing around town and our guest-house. The plan was to waddle through the night market on the way to dinner but just as we arrived the clouds opened sending all the tourists (and a lot of the stall owners) running. It was not a successful outing – V managed to get a really tasty smoothie, but that was it ! We squelched to a halt at a randomly chosen restaurant and enjoyed yet another acceptably good dinner with Arna (who was in a lot of pain – recovering from a 2 hour massage marathon). Tomorrow should be more our speed – bikes, waterfalls and kayaks !

[Pictures: Saffron – love their logo & coffee. One of the Wats – there are so many !]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi