The Royal Palace and Phu Si Hill
I woke up rather late this morning. I had my first full night of rest in an air conditioned room. I stayed a bit outside of the center of town but moved this morning to a cheaper room with just a fan. I rented a bicycle this morning, which is one of Luang Prabangs main modes of transportation. The scenery around the city is amazing. The nearby mountains are very close to the city and with the weather rainy and cloudy like it has been has added to the atmosphere. There is a low mist over the hills as well that remind me a lot of how it was like in Rwanda.
I met up with a couple of Israeli girls that were on the boat from Thailand and we checked out the Royal Palace Museum which used to house the royal family in the Kingdom of Luang Prabang centuries ago. A few things of interesting note were the sizes of the bedrooms. The queen’s bedroom was almost half the size of the King’s and the King had 2 large mirrors while the queen did not. Whether not this is how it was set up during their reign is unknown. Another interesting room at the museum was where they keep all the gifts that other countries gave to Laos. The Chinese display had an assortment of tea glasses and other dining sets and the Russians gave memorbilia of the space race and several pins and medals. The United States also gave space exploration gifts like a miniature lunar module as well as the key to Los Angeles presented from the mayor. We entered a Wat on the museum grounds but it wasn’t very interesting.
We went our separate ways and I went off to take care of some money exhange at the bank. I think I got ripped off pretty hard with the exchange rate since I used Thai baht to purchase American dollars. It does feel good to have a few greenies in my pocket now since most of the hotels quote their prices in US dollar and if you use local currency you will pay more. My hotel right now is $10 and they tried to charge me 100,000 Lao Kip which comes out to nearly $13. If you are going to the market or buying something from a food vendor it is better to use Lao Kip because they are smaller. Even tough the smallest Kip note is 1,000. The money has been pretty frustrating.
I keep running into a lot of the people that were on the slow boat from Thailand. There was a really nice Swedish girl who was traveling on her own as well as a 2 ski instructors from Poland, a lone guy from London and a couple of Austrians. I want to make my way to the waterfalls near Luang Prabang but I did not want to do it alone so I have been trying to organize a plan for tomorrow. There was another group of people that went today by bicycle but they said it took 3 hours and they returned by tuk-tuk with their bikes. It was suggested that if I can find a place to rent a motorbike that it would be a good idea. You may have think I haven’t learned my lesson but it is really safe here as the roads are pretty flag and the traffic is very light. Also, they drive on the RIGHt side of the road so even on my bicycle today I was very comfortable and didn’t have to worry about which way I was allowed to turn and can focus more on riding.
I’ll find out tonight who will be joining me because it won’t be any fun alone. I think the Swedish girl is the only one who confirmed, the rest have plans or just flat out don’t want to go.
Around 5pm I took a walk up to Phu Si temple on the top of Mt. Phu Si which is just a hill in the center of Luang Prabang. That is pronounced Poo-see. So yea, the jokes are plentyful when you go to Phu Si mountain to view the Phu Si temple. The view from the top is great and the walk up is short. On the way down there are several statues of Buddha in various positions. All in all great photograph opportunities.
Buddha sleeping on Phu Si hill
I’m cheesing a bit but who wouldn’t with a view like that?
Breath taking view of Luang Prabang
Tags: Laos, luang prabang, Photos, Travel
Joey
this makes me miss rwanda!
joeeeyyyy i love the picture of you hanging out of the boat.. you should pick me up a postcard from laos. its so lush and green.
Looking good!
“I’m cheesing a bit but who wouldn’t with a view like that??
The view ?
Sure it’s just not thinking about Phu Si ?