Day 58

27/08/2009

A fairly short drive of 100km to Luang Prabang today and the road was reasonably good though the number of villages it passed through kept our average speed down to about 40kmph. Filling up with fuel meant handing over 250000kips for 29 litres, which equates to about 60p a litre. You really would need a wheelbarrow if you wanted to buy a car with cash as the biggest note available is 50000kips, equivalent to about £3.40.

Not sure how to describe Luang Prabang. It is the second city of Laos, but has a population of less than 100000. Lonely planet has hyped up the place so that every 21 year old on their gap year comes here. The problem for us is that we have travelled for the last 6 weeks or so, and barely seen a "western" face, and we drive into the town, and we barely see a non-western face. English and Australian accents are everywhere.

It may be a bit selfish but we've become accustomed to having the place to ourselves, and now we're no longer special.

We have booked into a really nice hotel (US$70 per night) for a couple of nights so we can experience what is quite a nice place to be. The architecture has a hint of French colonial about it, the people are very friendly and there is a lot to do.

We got bikes as part of the hotel deal so have been out exploring. After dinner we found somebody to take us out on a boat on the Mekong river or an hour. We've been close to the river for most of the last week so a boat trip seemed obligatory. It's already about 400m wide at this point but still has a long way to go to reach the sea in south Vietnam.

Lat 19 53.89 N
Long 102 08.63 E
Town Luang Prabang