First Day in Luang Prabang

The day I first arrived (yesterday evening), I was pretty exhausted and jet lagged so I wound up going to sleep early and, not surprisingly, waking up early to get breakfast on the balcony (how cute is that?). I got homemade yogurt and muesli with coffee:

Here is the mosquito net around my bed.  It's my first one:

The gardens at this rustic sort of Guesthouse are really beautiful.  It's basically like a camping setting but in nicer thatched huts.  However, there are little creepy crawly friends that keep popping up in the room!  

The Guesthouse is a little way from the town so they drive us in.  I got dropped off in the morning and had to figure out the layout of this small city - without my iPhone!!  I haven't had to do much navigating or exploring in the past five or so years without a smartphone!!  

Of course the first thing I did was go to get another coffee. Lao coffee is very good, by the way.  The woman asked if I wanted my coffee iced and, thrilled by the thought,  I was like "sure!"  It is perpetually humid here.  Like crazy. Anything cold is a big plus. 

So I get the coffee, take a sip and then I have like a Home Alone moment where I wanna slap my face with both hands and scream "ICE!!!!"  I realized I'm not supposed to be drinking any ice or have any water, so I promptly (well not that promptly because it was hard to find a garbage can) threw it away.

I then walked down the Main Street.  It's kind of crazy cause that Main Street is just completely built up for tourists.  On the way to town though, in the car, I could see how underdeveloped the rest of Luang Prabang really is in contrast.

I found the temple where the monks are given alms in a ceremony every morning (super early) and it was really beautiful:

I then explored the National Museum.  On the way I found these floating flowers. They seem to be somewhat popular here.

Basically the first thing I saw at the National Museum was a monk using an iPad, which I thought was pretty hysterical:

Here are photos of the Wat at the National Museum:

My friend, the elephant:

This city is really into elephants.  Everyone is wearing these elephant pants they got from the market.  People have elephant bags.  I had an elephant stamp custom made!!  But I will have to wait until Saturday to meet one up close in Chiang Mai:

This is Luang, the Buddha for whom the city is named.  

There was a big pool and so many giant fish sticking their heads out to be fed:

He was there too:

Next I went across the street where there are like 328 steps up to visit another Luang and also to see beautiful views of the river and lush greenery.  

On the way up, women are selling things you sacrifice to Luang.  The flowers are gorgeous - the same bold orange color as the monks' robes.  However, they were also selling tiny birds in baskets!? I'm honestly not sure what you do with them!?  I kind of think maybe I should have bought all the birds to set them free.

Lady selling birds and flowers for Luang:

Isn't the Lao language beautiful?  I love all the loops! 

Steps up to Luang:

View:

Some things I found on the way down.  

This gorgeous smelling flower which reminds me of Hawaii:

Mr. Snail:

Another Wat (temple) that was closed for the day.

By now I was pretty hungry.  Without my smart phone, I couldn't even pick "the best" place to eat so I basically went to a place with some people, a menu I liked and free wifi.  Ironically, though I'm in Laos, I got pad Thai and a Thai papaya salad. 

Lunch, just because:

After lunch I decided to go see the Kouang Si waterfalls.  They were really pretty but since I did the trip on the fly without going back to my hotel, I didn't have a bathing suit to swim!!  It was soooo humid today that even putting my feet in the water felt amazing.  I can only imagine how actually swimming would have been.

I found this guy on the way out of the waterfalls:

There was also a bear rescue center, which I appreciated.  Apparently, in addition to the normal poaching they may be susceptible to, bears are also a hot target in China because bear bile is used for medicine!  So these rescued bears here are safe now:

Driving back I talked to a family from

Brooklyn Heights who actually knew someone I knew.  The mom also got her MSW from NYU so that was interesting too.  They were spending an entire month around Southeast Asia (like me) but have two sons, a 15 year old and maybe like an 11 or 12 year old.  I was impressed!  It was nice to speak to a fellow American/Brooklyn friend.  Even though I haven't been gone that long it kind of feels like I have!!  That's crazy cause the month long trip literally only began.  I can't even imagine how I'll feel at the end of it.

When we got home I went to pick up my custom made stamp!!  Since I love stamps, dogs and elephants, this seemed perfect.  This is NaNa, who carved the stamp, testing it out for me:

 The stamp has a dog on top and it stamps like this:

It's my name in Lao (supposedly - but whatever it says is so pretty!), an elephant and "Tina."  Cute!

The street market was also in full effect.  That is where you can buy all the elephant garb.  I'll take pictures of that tomorrow.  They also have shirts with Lao writing on it and since I seem to love Lao writing, maybe that is something to look into.  I wasn't very hungry so I got some fruit and these cute blinis?  I really wanted a crepe but the line was too long!  Maybe tomorrow.  I heard an American girl in line say, "I'm really sick of eating.  Like everything.  We've just eaten so much."  I thought that was funny.  I knew what she meant. Here is the blini in a banana leaf (it wasn't fully cooked on the inside, hoping that wont be a problem):

Tomorrow I'm excited to do a full day weaving class!