Wednesday 12th March
I was awoken by the sound of workmen banging something hard on another hard thing, so there was little chance of me sleeping beyond 08.00, even if I wanted to. It's a decent place to stay, but they don't seem to give a shit about how much noise they make.
It was a noticeably warmer day, so I took shelter from the heat and the sun in a few cafes until the early evening, when I ventured out to the Luang Prabang Museum, situated in the former Royal Palace. It was a reasonably interesting place, but I only really passed through, not getting too involved with the artefacts on display. To be honest, it was rather unexcpetional. The only thing to take my interest was a small presentation piece given to the Laos king by Richard Nixon back in the day; it is made up of a pre-revolution Laos flag that had been taken into space onboard Apollo 11, and some pieces of the Moon that had been brought back to Earth on that mission. I wasn't really in the mood for traipsing around a big museum anyway, and was more than happy to wander about for half an hour and no more.
The evening was another dull affair. In all honesty, I could have done with fewer days in Luang Prabang, despite the fact that I have been taken with the place. On reflection, I have had a few too many days in LP, but not enough days in hand to have travelled over to the east of the country, as was my initial plan. In retrospect, maybe I should have taken the hit travel-wise and seen more of the place, but I can't do anything about that now. Luang Prabang has been a good place to chill out, but I have reached the stage where I looking forward to moving on somewhere new.
