Lao Travel - Luang Prabang
The distance from Luang Namtha Province to Luang Prabang travel is about 310 km, more than 7 hours on bus, the bus price for 2 people is 220k Kip (~ 30$). We arrived at Luang Prabang's bus station nearly 6:00 pm. There were many tuktuk around to catch you into the center to find accommodations. But we decided to walk to find gest house by our self follor our mobile map ( maps.me). Asked no less than 10 guesthouses, nearly 4 km walk, but still can not find available room with our budget. One of hostel owner said to me that tomorrow they had big boad racing festival in Luang Prabang. So, also Laotians from other provinces came here to participate in the competition. Walking more than 20 minutes, we also found a guesthouse with reasonable price. The hostel is hidden under a small alley, rather murky and located opposite the temple WAT Manorom, centre of Luang Prabang. The room had 2 prices: one is 80k Kip but impossible to stay here, no window, at the end of conner. So, we choose the rest one ( 100k Kip), still no window but outside and had aircorn. We go out for dinner, eat local foods and hurry comeback to guesthouse for relaxing.
Tommorrow, we waked up early to walk to Nam Khan river ( where organised the boat racing) joying the festival. It's very crowed, many shops, many street foods in 2 side of the road. At the festival, we found out an angle to capture the racing teams easyl. It really surprised us is that so many kind of plastic bullet guns were sold here and lot of children with 2 or 3 guns in their hand. Becaused of crowed, and hot weather, stuffy air, we came out the festival, walk to some of temples.
Nam Khan River is a tributary of the Mekong River (river flowing through Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos), moving along the Nam Khan River you can observe a lot of temples such as Wat Xieng Thong in Laos, Wat Pak Khan . If you visit at noon as we surely will not lose money sightseeing tickets. The temple architecture here is different with other Southeast Asian countries. You can easily recognize it. Not lavish, magnificent but quiet and ancient.
Discovering the temples until 3: 00pm, we walked to Phou Si moutain- the highest one in Luang Prabang can see the sunset and whole view of Nam Khan river. The entrance fee is 20k Kip, following the stone steps, we went to the top. Such a beautiful and fresh viewpoint. We stayed and waited to catch the sunset on the river moment.
About 5:00 pm, many shops prepare to open for night market. Easy for you can find some foods to eat or souvernirs here. It will be more great drinking Lao beers to finish long day :)
