There is no way to sleep in on the mornings here. The light gets in through the windows and at seven it’s Gooooood morning, Laos!
But we just take a slow and easy morning. We agreed that yesterday’s long day can be unwound today by doing nothing, and taking our time doing it.
When we grab breakfast in the main street there are few others around. It’s cold enough to warrant a jacket in the morning, even though the midday heat is up in the thirties. We need to move again today and book a guesthouse on the other side of town while having breakfast.
We get our things from the current guesthouse, try to check out but there’s nobody there, leave The key and set course for our new accommodation.
It’s a longer walk than expected, but with only the small bags it’s no hassle. We talk about being able to travel this light, but it didn’t add up with the trekking equipment, snorkeling gear and more than two sets of underwear. In this heats that’s a little to little.
The room is of course not ready and we walk over to a coffee bar and spend some time reading and relaxing. So far the day is going as planned.

Back at noon we get the room, and it’s ground floor. We get promises of second story if it gets available. Hopefully it does. We’ll easily survive, but the smell of mould is there and we suspect the second floor is better in that way. We finally get to deliver some clothing to be washed. Remember the earlier statement of two sets of underwear? Gonna be good to get some clean ones.
We set out and expect to be out to we return for the night. It’s lunch time and we aim for a restaurant across town. To bad we’re to hungry.
We end up at the nearest restaurant on the street and get some good local food. The chili’s here in Laos means business, so it’s always prudent to take a little check before taking them on. This place was no exception.

Happy and full we walked around the peninsula and looked at the rivers meeting up. This area is the high end location of Luang Prabang and had a lot of nice houses. Even the newer once are built in the old colonial style to keep up appearance.
At the very top of the peninsula we walked down to the river bank and sat down on a rock to watch. Nam Kah river meets Mekong here. Since its dry season it’s not that high pressure in either of them, but it’s still something mesmerizing looking on the water flowing.

We meet a Colombian guy here that we trade pictures with. Take of us, take of you – works with most people. Just not the extremely selfie focused Asian. They will happily take a photo of us, but decline in more than fifty percent of the time a repayment. Go figure.
We enjoyed our time by the river when the sun was getting low on the sky. Then it’s the most beautiful light for photography.
Getting back up on the street we ran into a lady selling different cakes and buns. Damn, I wanted one, but stayed strong and loaded with my head held high. Don’t you think she follow me? Katja can’t walk down a street in a straight line. She has to pop into store after store in both sides of the street. And every time I’m just waiting outside, hanging on a street corner – the cake lady comes along. What have I done to deserve this? I look at her, people stop her and buy cakes, I walk on, stop again (and again), and she comes along. Finally she’s sold out of the only cake that really tempted me. Puh, mental fighting capacity +1.

We went back to the street food alley and had another great meal there.
Ouch! It’s just a few minutes to sunset. We’re going up to the Wat Phu Si. It’s a temple on a hill in the middle of town. We almost run up the stairs, while a lot of people are coming down. What’s that all about? I send warm thanks to former me who ran interval on the beach in Cambodia. That version of me made this more bearable.
We’re up about five minutes before sunset and get a good view of the big red setting sun. We’re not alone though, the temple is crowded. The mood is good though and some even applaud when the sun is gone. Just like charter place landings in the nineties.
We walk down the other side of the temple and find a large collection of Buddha’s. But Wat Phu Si is must known for its ” Buddha’s footprint”. I didn’t know, Katja didn’t know (or she knew but had forgot) – but hey, sometimes you’re just lucky. We stick our head in and have now seen it.
Back down we walk back towards the hotel. We pass a book and tea shop that shows movies at seven every night. Maybe we’ll come back one of the last night’s.

The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.

– Terry Pratchett, Moving pictures (Discworld, book #10)