Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Dirty Mountain

Day 340
Nicole and I were up early and determined to see Luang Prabang so that we could get the heck out of there. It was way too full of tourists for us. On the way to breakfast I picked up some postcards and wrote them while I ate my morning sandwich. I'm actually getting tired of these.



We wanted to visit the history museum but it was closed. Instead we walked to the end of the peninsula to see Wat Xieng Thong, built in 1560. The complex was beautiful. There were shinny mosaics over everything. I sat in the garden for a few minutes while Nicole prayed.
While we walked to our next stop we found a school with a sign inviting in tourists. The kids were at lunch, but we spent some time chatting with one of the teachers. We both left a small donation before moving on.

More western food was on the menu when we stopped for bagels at the Scandinavian bakery. We didn't want to go to our next destination until sunset so after eating we headed down a few doors to an internet cafe. One of these days I will actually get up to day with the blog. Well, I hope so anyway or it will be traveling long after I have stopped.

Around 4:30 we climbed up 190 steps to the top of Mt. Phousey, yes really. We had first heard the name from a local in Vang Vieng and it had us in stitches each time. Apparently we both need to grow up. After checking out the panoramic view of the city we found a good spot for the sunset. To pass the time we made up jokes to go with the name of the hill. The sunset was amazing and we spent quite a while taking pictures of its progress.

On our way back we grabbed dinner at a roadside vegetarian stand. It was really very good. Nicole and I had decided that we were going out a bit too much and picked a destination where there would be no place to go. We would need to get up really early to get there and decided to just stay in. This didn't stop us from chatting half the night though.


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