Enter Luang Prabang

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The capital of Laos used to be Luang Prabang. There was a king there. Later, the capital was moved to Vientiane. I think Luang Prabang has a scene like our Kandy in Sri Lanka. Luang Prabang is the most popular place among tourists.

Station and accommodation
We got off at Luang Prabang and went to a shop to have something to drink before going to the airport. We asked for a watermelon, which cost seven to eight hundred rupees in Sri Lankan money. Why would we drink watermelon for that much? We selected a random juice and drank it.
It was delicious.

After drinking something from the stall outside the station, we went back to the station to get a taxi. I heard that Laos is a budget taxi service. They took us for a reasonable price. It was a high-roof dolphin taxi service right at Luang Prabang station. The price was reasonable. Also, since it was AC inside, the dust from outside didn't fall.

But it was like an oil tanker. It was time to leave. Four groups of people going to the city got on like us. Four groups got off at four different places. We got off at the end. This is one of the few places on the China-Lao Railway that is a bit far from the city center from the station. It was about a kilometer from the station to the city center in Luang Prabang.

Hostel accommodation
This time we had booked a hostel. Even that was getting used to. It was too hot when we left. We left that trip with our bags and went for a walk. First, we looked around, exchanged some money, and looked for a place to buy something. We found a place right by the river. We stopped there because we could eat while looking at the river. That river was the Mekong River. We had seen the Mekong in southern Laos before..now we see the Mekong, but there is a distance of more than eight hundred kilometers between those two places. It must have been even more. The river does not flow in a straight line, right?

Snake wine and food
After ordering the food, two people came and brought two bottles of wine from the shop. They were a type of whiskey infused with snakes and lizards. We only saw them and took pictures, but we didn't go to drink them. But our friends were a little surprised when they saw the place.

Next, we went to see the boats on the Mekong River. They charged 400,000 Kip per hour for the boat trip. The boatman explained to us with gestures and a little bit of a laugh that he would show us around here and there. We got off at 3 o'clock again. But our friends didn't seem to be very interested in the boat trip. A jockey came and asked for a small boat for two laks. I was happy to go on one leg. But our friends were a little scared to go on the small boat without a jacket on the steep road. That trip was a waste of time.

When we walked back to the accommodation, we saw a temple. Knowing that we were in Sri Lanka, the ticket office at the temple was happy. It was a monument, or rather, an old temple near the royal palace, and tickets were sold for it. So when we went there, I was shocked to see that my glasses and hat were missing. I had forgotten them. I went back to the village and brought them back, and I had forgotten them where the snake whiskey I had drunk earlier was.

When we got back, we saw people busy getting ready for a night market on the main road where we had booked our accommodation. As soon as the sun had risen and the sun had set, the people were preparing big box tents and setting them up on the road, getting ready for the night market.