well the cookery course was a huge success. Carl is now THE chef of the family and I expect him to make me dinner every night upon our return.. Fat chance!! We had a great time and learnt a lot about Laos food, how to cook it and most importantly how to eat it!
In the afternoon we went up to Wat Phu Si on the top if a hill overlooking Luang Prabang which was beautiful. We then went and had a Laos massage... Carl's was more successful than mine and I have some bruising on my lower back - it was a pretty tough old massage! (but it only cost 2.5 pounds each!!) We wandered to the night bazaar and were highly successful buying some local crafts.. In particular a print of a Lao archer... which we promtly left behind on a tuk tuk the following day. oh and some trousers for me which didn't fit. Brilliant. However all in all it cost us only 2 pounds so not worth getting upset over!
Sunday we caught the bus at 0900 from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. A 9 hour journey along some amazing scenery but sadly the Lao roads aren't straight and so we travelled along some pretty winding roads... When we arrived there seemed to be a local festival so we tried about 6 places to stay and all were full.. finally found somewhere for the night and it cost only 8 US dollars... Not bad!
Today (Monday) we have been wandering around the town although there's not a great deal to see... We found the Arc De Triomphe replica which the Lao people built after being given some concrete by the States which they were meant to build a runway with but instead built a victory monument! Not a patch on the real one but interesting nonetheless..!
We've also bought a cheapo flight from here to Hanoi tomorrow because it would take 2 days otherwise to get there and we're anxious about not rushing Vietnam and Cambodia, we only have two weeks in each country before heading to Thailand and our 5 star resort for Xmas!!
That's all for now folks, some piccies are up on Flickr.
Becs and Carl xxxxxxxxxx
