Laos - Luang Prabang

We are in Luang Prabang. It's one of Laos' two big cities. Very french. Looking forward to my coffee and baguette tomorrow morning, as breakfast has recently consisted of whatever you normally eat for dinner. Spicy noodle soup mostly - it warms you up after a cold shower.

We've been up in the mountains. Mong khiaw, which is a long way up the Nam Ou river, a village that you can only get to by boat. There are no roads, just a grassy track going through the middle of town, quaintly. It was cooler up there, and the dramatically pointed mountains were punching holes in all the passing clouds, which tipped out torrentially two nights on the trot. The lush greenness was a relief to explore so we took a little hike into the wilderness. We peeked around in caves, which were terrifying. Walking in was safe enough, but dark and creepy as soon as you got more in than out. The water turned into a mirror, reflecting dark thoughts and hiding the riverbed, which for all you know could disappear anytime and take you with it. Then there were the drums, which sounded like they were coming from the deepest parts of the mountain, but were all around us. It spooked us for a bit, and then we were fascinated to discover this was caused by the water lapping up against a large hollow rock formation.

We got the bus down here, which isn't really a bus, more of an open-sided army truck with people crammed onto benches, the floor and hanging out the back. Talking of armies, there are bombs literally everywhere in Laos. Pre-exploded, of course. The Americans bombed Laos to bits in the 70's and spent millions on doing so, but denied (and still deny) it ever happened. Shifty yanks.

So, Luang Prabang. There are a couple of nice spa's which i might go to in order to get the dust washed out of my wrinkles and my big mission for today is to get my used books exchanged for interesting new ones. That is the complexity of my life today, if only forever.