Hanging around Luang Prabang

I have spent the past few days hanging around Luang Prabang. It is pretty easy place to be. In the morning I get breakfast by the rivers edge and watch the long-boats go by.

The Internet here is as good as in the US except a lot more accessible to pedestrians. I simply walk into an Internet cafe and sit down. It costs about 100Kip/minute or about 60 cents per hour.

There are loads and loads of places to eat in LP. Breakfast is about $3 and so is dinner.

The many Buddhist temples in town are the residences for the novices. The novices are young men getting an education on the cheap. In the morning the novices walk around town in a long line and are given food like sticky rice and sweet cakes.

Biking around Laos seems to be an ideal way of seeing the country. But now it is too hot and dusty. in November and December the temperatures ought to be ideal. Most of the roads are sealed. Long boats on the rivers could be used to get around the mountains.

I will take a three day trek into the mountains with White Elephant Tours. We'll stay in some village in the hills about an hour outside of LP.

Then I plan to head way up north by road and river to the golden triangle area.

The Chinese are building a dam on the Mekong in Laos. I supposes they could use the power and Laos could use the investment. I have determined that they sell compact fluorescent bulbs here in LP so today's adventure will be to find out were. The point being, the Laotians are damming up a river for the sake of wasting a lot of energy on light bulbs. Since just about nobody has a TV or AC, the dominant use of power must be lighting (unlike in the US were lighting is only about 9% of electric power).

I was invited to a Chinese new year celebration this evening. Making rice cakes and drinking beer.