10-21 (Saturday) Luang Prabang

I left the guest house (Jaliya) early while Joyce stayed behind. I went down to the local Saturday market. It was located on a long street one street away from the Mekong. This one had the usual fruits and vegetables plus some vegetables I hadn't seen before. It had areas where people were cooking breakfast and people selling clothes. The things I saw for eating that were unusual were: moles (live), birds ( plucked and unplucked), snake (dead), chipmunk (dead), crickets (live), white puffy grub worms that live in cells similar to a wasp nest (live.) Of course the usual plucked chickens and ducks.

I forgot to say that yesterday our driver chowed down on a couple of tasty crickets before we crossed the river to the cave.

I walked along the river observing the daily life of the people then met Joyce around 9:00 and had breakfast. We walked along the main drag going in shops we hadn't been in previously. In one shop they sold the most beautiful necklaces (my weakness) but the prices were sky high ($350 US) Needless to say I walked out empty handed. Some of the other stores were just as expensive - the same thing I bought in the market for $4 they were charging $65!!

We decided to go to the museum but when we got there it was closed for lunch so we walked through the market. We ate lunch outside at the nice hotel where we had eaten the first night. It was so hot that we went back to the guest house to cool off and rest.

Around 4:30 we set out to climb to the temple where everyone goes to see the sunset. We went up the back way along a lovely tree shaded narrow path after walking through a small community. The people that go up the front way (the way we went down) had many more steps to climb than we did. The top was jammed with tourists all trying to get the perfect shot as the sun went down over Luang Prabang and the Mekong.

We went back to the night market. I took pictures of a hilltribe woman who was selling her wares. She dressed me up in some of the clothes she was selling and Joyce took our picture. Naturally she wanted me to buy something from her. I inquired about the cheap shirt I had tried on - she wanted $8. I ended up giving her $3 but it wasn't worth 50 cents. When I got it home I washed it and most of the color came out. The top fastner was broken!

We walked along the river where they had many restaurants. Some of them looked so nice with white tablecloths and twinkley lights - very romantic. We walked on and finally decided on a French Restaurant on one of the side streets. I had a glass of wine and we split chicken with lemon grass sauce. It was wonderful. We ordered sticky rice because it has been on every menu and we hadn't known what it was. We found out why it is called sticky rice - it sticks to the spoon, to the fork and to your teeth. I didn't think it had much taste. For dessert I had some sort of apple concoction with a caramel ice cream on top - to die for. Two American (Seattle) women came in and sat down next to us. They looked as old as we are but were probably younger. They were the most interesting people we have me so far on our trip bar none. They had traveled down the river on the slow boat from Kunming, China into part of Thailand then into Lao. They were going on through Lao to Cambodia to Saigon and on to Hanoi. They were both well traveled but one even more than the other - she has been EVERYWHERE! She was so interesting. The killer is that they don't mind the slow boat! We were in shock over that. We couldn't stop talking about it all night.