The Milliquet's

After breakfast we found a tuk tuk to take us to the bus station.  Some chaos ensued at the bus station to get tickets, including driver arguing with the ticket manager that there was still room and to sell us a seat.  We eventually got a seat which inadvertently bumped some people that had reserved, but eventually we were on our way for the bumpy journey.  The bus stopped a few times to pick up a person waving in the street and drop them off a short distance later.  Another pair of stops to pick up and deliver a package, with two more to pick up and drop off the bus drivers brother.  Laos is a different world.  Eventually we made it to Luang Prabang and through the power of group negotiation got a fair deal on a tuk tuk from the bus station back into the town.  Today happened to be the end of Buddhist Lent and there were celebrations happening at many of the temples in the city.  We walked around and saw some of the lights lit up to celebrate t...

Nong Khiaw viewpoint hike was our main priority for the day.  We found a small spot for breakfast before heading for our first hike in Laos.  The effort was high, the sweat was rolling, the path slippery, and the air heavy.  AFter about an hour of non stop sweating we reached the summit.  The views over the town and the river were spectacular and worth every ounce of effort to get to the top.  We relaxed for a bit at the top, started to get a little cold - this feeling has not happened many times since arrving in asia - and hiked back down.  Conveniently close to where we were staying we returned to the hotel to clean up before finding lunch.  The weather looked a bit unruly so we decided to spend the afternoon in town instead of walking an hour each way to see a couple of "average" caves based on online commenters.  We spent the remainder of the day exploring the town and relaxing.  For dinner we found a place that served Lao Style BBQ....

We woke up early to take in the Alms giving ceremony.  Every morning the monks walk through the streets of Luang Prabang in order to collect food from the city people (and now tourists) to get them through the day.  Following the ceremony we returned to our hotel and packed our bags.  Following breakfast we got a tuk tuk to the bus station and evntually boarded a 15 passenger van from 1965 for the ride to Nong Khiaw.  We left about 30 minutes late with 18 people on the bus.  The bus ride was bumpy, the roads in Laos are terrible, and landslides had washed out many sections with temporary areas cut out of the hillside to pass the crumbled road.  Eventually we made it,  got settled into our guest house that would be home for the next 2 nights and went out to find some dinner and explore the small riverside town.  Dinner was prolonged by the combination of dreadful service and a passing thunderstorm but such is life in the rainy season in Laos. ...

A simple day was planned for touring around Luang Prabang today.  The first stop of the day was at the UXO visitor centre.  UXO - Unexploded Ordinance - is an ever present problem in Laos.  "Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos, nearly equal to the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in history relative to the size of its population; The New York Times noted this was "nearly a ton for every person in Laos".[37] Some 80 million bombs failed to explode and remain scattered throughout the country, rendering vast swathes of land impossible to cultivate and killing or maiming 50 Laotians every year" For more see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laos Unfortunately for us the visitor centre was closed when we arrived, but we did take in a large amount of information and saw some gruesome images of those recently affected by UXO. The second ...