Around the World With Uncle Moose: Yangon to Luang Prabang, Laos (09 FEB)

For a map of my travels, click here.

Up bright and early for my flight to Bangkok to connect to my flight to Luang Prabang. Due to the lack of nightlife in Yangon, my intense sampling of international beers at dinner, and the vast entertainment value of Burmese television, I have been asleep by 10:00 every night, and up at 6:00 every morning, so "bright and early" wasn't a problem.

The flight was delayed two hours due to fog, but still left me plenty of time for my connection in Bangkok. Not only that, but two hours in the Yangon airport was a lot better than my time in Addis Ababa--they had free and working wi-fi, and several shops and a restaurant. If only the rest of city were in the same shape as the airport. On the other hand, the airport wasn't built by the British colonialists at the beginning of the 20th century....

In Bangkok, I got on a Bangkok Airways prop plane for my flight to Luang Prabang.

My plane to Luang Prabang

There was a time when flying in a prop plane on an east Asian airline to a city most people have never heard of might have caused me some concern, but I had already been on a Bangkok Airways flight, and I knew it would be a better experience than a US Airways Express puddle-jumper. The airline proved me right with a new plane, and a full meal(!) on a 45-minute flight. Here are a couple of shots from the plane:

Just outside Bangkok--I'm guessing the water is the remnants of the flooding in the fall.

Countryside in Laos

Got to Luang Prabang at about 3:00 and the guy with the sign with my name on it was (thankfully for me) awaiting me at the airport. He got me checked into my hotel, and I was shown to my room, which was the "snake" room. The rooms don't have numbers--they're all named after animals.

The rest of the day was "time to rest up for tomorrow's adventures", which meant, of course, that I immediately left the hotel and started walking as much as I could around Luang Prabang.

My hotel (Ancient Luang Prabang)

My first task was to find an ATM to get some cash (Laotian Kip). It took me approximately 15 seconds to locate an ATM next to the hotel. I ultimately found out that not only does Luang Prabang have more Buddhist temples per capita than anywhere in the world, they also have more ATMs and travel agencies.

Luang Prabang has a population of about 70,000 and reminds me of Chapel Hill, if Chapel Hill had colonial French architecture and a Buddhist temple on every block. The whole central area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which means that trucks and cars are mostly (but not entirely) prohibited. This makes for a very low-key atmosphere. Being a tourist town, it is filled with guesthouses, backpacker hotels, travel agencies, coffee shops and restaurants (and ATMs). Here are a few highlights from my walk:

Along the main street

The Mekong River

Side street with guesthouses

Setting up for the night market

Late day activity at a Buddhist temple

Along the way, I encountered a number of vendors selling smoothies, which involved mixing fruit, condensed milk, and ice in a blender. Knowing full well that you should never eat/drink ice in a third-world country, I said "what the hell, I'm thirsty" and had a banana smoothie, with (as I would later discover) no ill effects.

Smoothie vendor

After dinner, I wandered the night market, which occupies most of the main street--they close off the main street and the vendors put up tents in the middle of the street. Like the town in general, the night market was low-key and very pleasant. The vendors didn't hassle you--you did have to bargain, but they weren't aggressively begging me look, as happens in most other countries.

Night market in front of my hotel

One of the tents at the night market

Part of the night market were the food stalls in the alley next to my hotel. It was a combination of ladies with a wok making a single thing, and larger buffet-style offerings. Since I had already eaten, I only looked, but I did come back and do the food stalls later in the trip (more on that later).