Luang Prabang

So it turns out where I just was is called NongKhiaw but I was actually across the river in Mung Ngoi. I'm pretty sure that's right. Not that anyone is reading any of this of course. You're all in your igloos or hunting beavers or cutting trees or something. Man the French are stupid. Well I guess not all of them, but this one girl really was. And she called herself a psychologist.

Anywhoo...

So now we're in Luang Prabang. Our last night in NK/MN was wonderful except the roosters seemed particularly loud and there were dogs fighting somewhere in the distance. Sleeping in a bamboo bungalow doesn't give the best sound insulation so you hear these kind of things. I guess the roosters wouldn't be so bad if there weren't other roosters. One is always trying to out cockadoodledoo the other. I suppose if they didn't have this ingrained tendency then we wouldn't have cock fighting, and where would the world be then? Probably in a much worse state.

So Luang Prabang. A UNESCO world heritage site and from what I can see well deserving. The French were pretty busy here, and to sound like all the tourist pamphlets, that combined with the Buddhist architecture all over the place to make an interesting little plavcce wedged onto a peninsula between two rivers. Of course I would much rather be here in about 1850...now that would be cool, but whater you gonna do? Invent a time machine (hopefully).

There are some things to see and do outside the town, but both the waterfall and cave are 30km or so away and would cost $10 for a round trip. I know it's not a lot but that can also be me eating sleeping and buying things for a day (or two if I'm really careful). The cave (called Pak Ou) is where they put all sorts of old Buddha statues and sculptures from temples, so it would be neat, but I think I've already made my point about sculptures.

After getting allexcited about the first dragons I saw at a tample (because they really look badass) with them too I've lost the excitement. They do tend to repeat a bit so, no more pics. Sometimes there's a lion or something, but even then...no more pics. I've really cut back on those...

One of the big things to do here is to wake up bright and early and watch the monks collectiing alms. They stop eating at noon the day before so by dawn they get pretty hungry I'd imagine. Without getting too flowery (here because I'm saving my best adjectives for teh published version which you will all have to pay for), it was pretty cool. Seeing a line of 100plus orange robed monks walking down the early dawn street in siolence is cool. They're all barefoot, adn the people giving also have shoes off. Men can stand but women have to kneel. Everyone has rice (sometimes otehr things like one bag of chips I saw) and tehy take handfuls and put it into the monks little bukcets. I call these monk snacks. And when you put a whole bunch of monk snacks together you get a monk meal.

Personally the idea of eating dozenbs of little balls of rice, mashed together by various hands in various statres of cleanliness isn't terribly appealing to me. But then I'm not a monk. And since this world doesn't exist you may as well have dirty rice as clean because in Nirvana it won't matter. I kinda want to be a monk for three months or something like that. Just to get a feel for the whole thing, and be able to tell the story accrurately if I have to write about it. That and would get to wear an orange robe and be bald. So I guess, either someone makes me an orange robe or I become a monk because I'm already bald.

Noght market here is funand I'm sure it would be more fun if I really really really liked buying silk and wood carvings and silver, adn pipes. Oh and spade tips seem to be quite popular too. But as I said, I'm saving my pennies.

I climbed the hill in town yesterday, it is call Phu Si. This is pronounced poo see, and well I won't make any jokes about the PhuSi massage parlour I found on main street. The view was okay, and there were some interesting sites. Once again though...I've seen a lot of temples and at this point they have to be pretty cool to imprress. There was a cave up there. I liked it and even took a picture. There wqas also an imprint of Buddha's foot. He must have been like 20 feet tall, or more likely once you achieve Nirvana you can be whatever size you want.

You know what they say about Buddha's with big feet??? They'll kill you.