Tour de Laab

Anticipating a departure from the tourist track, our morning start time became a lunch start time as Brooke enjoyed a last real coffee and I had one of the best hot chocolates this side of the Pacific. Coffee has been one of the greatest points of difference between Thailand and Laos. In Thailand, you could count on drip coffee everyday, and could get espresso more often than not. Plus, the coffee tastes great. I am in no way a coffee aficionado, but the Thai people do something right when making their lattes. I think it's the milk, which I believe is also the key to the best hot chocolate in Laos. Any type of milk had been close to impossible to find in Laos. In Thailand, quarts of whole milk were available in their 7-11s, a mysteriously popular chain that seems to sell only packaged expensive crap, typically next door to a shop selling real food like papaya salad, sticky rice or freshly grilled meat for a fraction of the cost. However, we never found milk anywhere else so we...

Temple view Our last day in Luang Prabang drew out longer than anticipated as we tried to fit in various activities that had slipped through the cracks. After ascending several hundred feet to the temple on the summit of Phou Si, a craggy hill rising from the middle of the old city, and exploring a few more crannies of the city, we returned to the hotel. My bags nearly overflowed with random souvenirs - sticky rice baskets, a bamboo hat and some Hmong textiles is all I can say in the interest of preserving secrecy from Brooke. Consequently, our 3pm departure was further delayed as I navigated the Lao postal system. Interestingly, a 5kg package cost only 15$ more to ship to the US than to Thailand, so I just sent it back to California, though it will likely be in transit two months from now when we return home. Our last task completed, Luang Prabang finally loosened it's grip and we headed thirty kilometers south as night fell. Slightly sweet coconut based snack drying in...

Picking up where we left off before Christmas... Our ride from Nong Khiao to Luang Prabang was the longest of the trip so far - 140 kilometers - but was very, very far from being our most difficult. We covered the distance quickly and enjoyed periodic views of the Nam Ou river as we followed it south. Approaching the city, roads got busier, and we wondered if we would have trouble crossing bridges in heavy traffic (a problem in some Thai cities). Instead, we noticed motorcycle traffic on our road growing thicker and thicker, and cars thinning out, until we were in a tightly spaced single file line of motorcycles going over a scenic wooden bikes-only bridge. This kicked off the delightful trend of everything in Luang Prabang being easy and lovely. We stayed in the UNESCO approved French colonial city center, on a shaded street of mixed French buildings and beautiful old Buddhist temples. This part of the city sits on a narrow peninsula between the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, so...