Luang Prubang - beautiful and relaxed

After sleeping in (since I was up late watching the world cup), I spent the day walking around and organizing the next leg of my travels.

For breakfast, all I wanted was a crepe! I had noticed a lot of restaurants on the main strip serving crepes, and figured it would be easy to find a cafe by the Mekong River serving them. I figured "what could be better than a banana crepe with chocolate ice cream by the side of one of the world's great rivers?"

Well fate was not with me, since I went to ten different riverside cafe's, all of which only had "pancakes". I eventually got my crepe, but had to settle for less spectacular surroundings. I ended up having a neat, albeit different experience than I expected. In Southeast Asia all shopkeepers and restaurant owners have there homes either beneath or above the storefront. Accordingly, for the less upscale options, if you use the toilet, it is almost always the family's bathroom for their home. In this case it was a washroom with a shower and a hole in the ground (basically a porcelain covered hole). I actually liked getting to see what sort of position the average urban Laos person is in.

After breakfast I went to book a trek. I went into a couple places and ended up settling on a two day hiking and kayaking trip. There was a group of five Welsh people in the office at the same time as me, and I liked the idea of knowing the people I was trekking with ahead of time (they were very friendly/outgoing). In my effort to get a better price I actually walked out of the office while they were signing there forms, but I saw them on the street later and they told me they weren't able to get a discount further than what had been agreed to while I was there. Since my walking out (which usually works) had no effect, I decided to go back and book with that specific company. The terrain here is full of hills and mountains, so I'm looking forward to the challenge. For me I'm guessing the kayaking part won't be too difficult.

For sunset I hiked up a hill in the middle of the city with a small temple on top. Unfortunately the sun had just set behind the mountains, but it made for quite a beautiful view.