Day 6 - Luang Prabang

Our first morning in Luang Prabang was a little overcast and cool - normal around here.  We set off in search of soup for breakfast.  The Lao make a similar soup to Vietnamese pho and we found a little corner shop with exactly what we were looking for.  We all ordered some form of noodle soup with chicken.  I put too much chili paste in my soup and I was sniffling most of the meal.  Henry put a "thimble" in his and said it was perfect.  Show off.  The woman who ran it also made a form of the Vietnamese banh mi sandwich, which was really good.   Before breakfast, we came across this woman selling serious knives and a woman transporting a LOT of eggs on her scooter:

Breakfast spot - lady making banh mi

Soup for breakfast is sooooo good

banh mi-type sandwich

 After breakfast we walked to the entrance of Wat (I can't hope to spell the name of it right, just look at the sign below), which was just a towering staircase.  Great, more stairs!  Just what I was looking for!

Andrew and Sylvie near the top of the temple grounds

Buddhas near the top of the grounds

 Even though we were huffing and puffing, the climb was worth it.  The views were unbelievable.  We could see where the Khan River met the Mekong and the entire city and surrounding mountains.  The silhouettes of the hills in the background just seem to gradually get lighter and lighter until you can't see them any more, but it seems they could go on forever.  This city is truly beautiful.

Panoramic view at the peak of the hill

The climb down the steps wasn't too bad and we came out on the other side of the temple, in front of the national museum.  We decided we had seen enough for the morning and left it to explore another day.  As we walked around the town a bit more, Sylvie and I visited some cute shops and then we all stopped to have a quick coffee pick-me-up.  The place we stopped was near the far end of the city, so we walked over to enjoy the views.  Andrew and I trampled our way through some steep steps and some weeds to get to the banks of the Khan River and took some photos.

This was a grumpy dog in the street

Art shot of some bikes

View from the river bank

 As usual, we were getting hungry and decided on L'Elephant for lunch, a fancy french place.  The food was good, but nothing super special - except for the passion fruit sorbet that Henry and I got for dessert!  It was the only passion fruit sorbet I've ever had, but it was the best!!!

All of our feet were in need of a little rest so we tuk-tuked back to the hotel and enjoyed the pool and a cold beer.  

We had reservations for dinner at a restaurant with traditional Lao food at 7 p.m.  Sylvie and Henry left a bit early to have a drink before dinner.  Andrew and I had some trouble finding our map of the city and the key to the room (both of which turned out to be in Andrew's pockets), so we had time for just one quick drink across the street from the restaurant.  The four of us met up about 7 and sat down for dinner, ordering beer, eggplant dip, tom yum soup, fried fish, fried chicken and a few other things.  The tom yum was ok, not as good as Thailand, and same with the eggplant.  We had heard it was pretty good, but it had nothing on the place in Chiang Mai.  The fried chicken and fish were good, though, but mainly because of the yummy pepper sauce they came with.  I forgot to take photos of the food, but here's the end of the meal:

Andrew was feeling a bit under the weather so we headed back to the hotel to get in bed early.  We have reservations for a cooking class in the morning.  So excited!