Leaving Luang Prabang……

It was hard to believe that we had spent an entire 5 nights in Luang Prabang. When on vacation, I'm usually ready to go, be it Lima, Cusco, Hanoi, or where ever, I have no second thoughts when leaving. But Luang Prabang had gotten to me. It had become a matter of "just wanted's". You know…..I just wanted another dinner at Tamarind…..I just wanted another morning to watch the "Saffron Circuit":

    

I just wanted another morning walk through the Fresh Market:

   

We just wanted another morning of exploration, fueled by the energy drink of choice in Luang Prabang, M-150….which you can get here in San Diego if you wish. We saw folks buying this stuff by the caseload.

We just wanted one more knock on our door during the evening, marking the delivery of a nightly snack at our hotel:

And we just wanted another visit to the quirky, but interesting Palace Museum:

 

We found the organization in the former "Queen's Reception Room" of gifts from various countries to be quite telling…..all of the Communist Countries were on one side of the room, all of the gifts from Democratic Countries were on the other.

As we walked to pick up a "little something for the flight" at one of the stands at the end of the fresh market:

 

And grabbed our last cup of Lao Coffee, the Missus and I talked about how we had slowly, but surely gotten used to things in Luang Prabang. The city is not very large, and you'll start noticing the same people rather quickly. For us, it was the various dogs…….

"Ice Cream Boy" was our favorite.

 

We called him "Ice Cream Boy" because we twice saw him sitting on his Owner's lap, sharing a cup of Ice Cream…same spoon and all.

And there was 'Hannibal':

 

You know why we called him Hannibal, right? Poor guy, he looked so docile. I don't know what terrible deed he committed to be relegated to such a fate.

This is the Missus's favorite dog photo in Luang Prabang:

 

At the "ping" (grill) stand, I had thoughts about trying out the pork belly.

 

But instead we went with the "Water Buffalo Patties", which tasted much like a herbaceous and spicy "Bun Cha", and a bag of sticky rice:

 

We also grabbed one of these Bamboo Tubes, filled with coconut flavored sticky rice, much like Com Tam, but much sweeter, and larger. This was good stuff, and never made it out of our room.

 

I asked the Missus what made an impression on Her….and the answers were interesting. She was so fascinated with the pots and bamboo steamers….

 

Charcoal braziers were everywhere, with curls of steam rising into the air. The fragrance of sticky rice permeated portions of the Fresh Market.

The Missus actually had one of the local Night Market "artists" do a pencil drawing for Her, which I'm sure will end up in a frame one of these days.

The Missus was also drawn to the school……which reminded Her of the school She attended growing up. We'd usually stop on our way back to the hotel to watch the flag lowering ceremony.

 

The Missus would always tell me "look, look, all the parents and siblings are waiting…."

 

"OK, watch the flag is being lowered…watch all the children…they're going to goooo!"

 

It seemed like the clock was being turned backwards…….as She was enjoying a part of Her youth.

Packing our bags, we waited for our "car"….which in this case, was really a car ("no worries…car is in-clu-ded") to the airport:

 

And next up was Chiang Mai!

Postscript: We had given our email address to one of the really nice young men at Chang Inn. A few weeks after our return, we received an email from him. Attached to the email was a beautiful, obviously professional photo of Luang Prabang(so of course it's not being posted)from the air. The simple text to the photo was: "This is my home"…………..

Thanks for letting us share this with you…..