I suppose Luang Pragang is the travellers Nirvana - pretty 100 year old houses set on a cliff overlooking the Mekong river, quiet main street with orange robed monks wandering along and occasionally hogging the internet looking at badhabits.com or something. Hot during the day so locals snooze and tourist drink iced coffee and swat flies and occasionally the other way round when you stop concentrating. Nice dinners - lots of fish and rice and banana pancakes. Have upgraded from a cheap room without sound insulation (3 pounds per night) to a nice airconditioned room overlooking the Mekong (4 times the price). This one actually gets cleaned which is preferable when you have to live with vomit woman . The airconditioning makes a refreshing change when don't have a power cut. One a day at the moment.
Lots of tours available as always. Walks to here, paddling to there and four day rides on elephants somewhere else. Four days! Riding an elephant is like taking a bus in Clapham. It's a bit hot and smelly, slightly uncomfortable but you can get somewhere else in 20 minutes. Like Streatham. Who wants to go for 4 hours let alone 4 days and still be in Streatham. It would dive you and the elephant mad. It's nicer here than Streatham granted but you don't need to have an elephant to enjoy it. Having said that we might take a ride to see a waterfall and have a splash in the river this afternoon
Good things
Night markets with low single light bulbs illuminating the wares. Creates a nice cosy glow while you look at ornate chess sets and cushion covers on the way to the pubThe moped is again the transport of choice. The whole family can get on to scoot around. Looks fun. I've even seen a labrador stuffed along the bottom. Could solve the LA commuting problem without adding more lanes Watching the sunset over the mountains from the temple in the middle of the old town
Bad things
Very thin walls meant that our neighbours kept waking us up not that they were particularly noisy. Just rubbish insulation. Walls were made from bamboo leaves. Should feed walls to pandas.Becky getting stung in the eye by a disoriented ex flying insect and then getting stomach ache from anti malaria tablets and then being sick all night. Neighbours decided to go elsewhere. No noise from next door but hourly retching did not make for comfortable evening with or without earplugs...Everybody has to work here (apart from us),even the smallest children who sell beads and jewelry
