19th June - Luang Prabang

The alarm didn't go off and so when I woke up it was already light and we had missed the monk's procession. It happens every day though so we planned to go another day.

After a quick walk up to town for money and breakfast, we changed hotel to Villay Vanh. They'd been so nice to us the day yesterday when we were waiting for Jordan and Belinda, and had such a lovely bed and air-con that I couldn't resist. We made the most of it and chilled out on the balcony during the heat of the day, enjoying the free coffee, bananas, star fruit (ynummy!) and water.

We ventured out again with the intention of seeing some of the many wats in the town. We took a nice walk up the hill to That Chomsi stupa. We didn't go right up the stupa itself but we did take a walk round where there was a (giant) footprint of Buddha's and a shrine in a cave, as well as bomb casings being used as plantpots.

We also visited Wat Pha Mahathat and took some time to admire the decorative carved friezes that adorned the outside. A monk came and opened up the doors and windows of the main room and we saw detailed paintings depicting the life of Buddha curving around the walls, as well as an altar with countless tiny Buddha's worked into every detail.

We were back in town in time for the night market to start setting up again so we stopped for food at one of the buffet style stalls. Like all buffets the world over, the food looked great but was reassuringly disappointing and so we left feeling a little bit grubby and oily.

After a nice, long chat with my mum, we joined the Miriam and Amber in a little bar/guesthouse called Mojos. It was a million miles away from any bar called Mojos that I've ever been to and was a nice mix between classy and cool. We enjoyed watching some of the musicians there and were impressed that the Kiwis played the banjo and sang even though we missed the performance because we were out trying ot find Nick and Sam. I liked the idea that they had bought one while they were travelling and were teaching themselves songs as they went along.

By chance, Nick and Sam wandered past just as the musicians were winding up for their 10pm curfew and the Kiwis were thinking about going home to bed ready for another long leg of their journey the following day and so we ended up in a bar called Utopia.

We couldn't believe how full it was considering that everyone there must have had to walk past our guesthouse to get there. It was very much the place to be and Matt and I felt far too uncool to be there but we did enjoy catching up wth Nick and Sam again.