7th – 9th October 

Finally Sightseeing in the City

Today was a really long and full day, making the most of time after a lazy one yesterday! Getting up at 7am, Vicky and I were meeting to do a 7.30am yoga class at Utopia. Before setting off I said bye to Simon, who was leaving LP to go scooter up to some more remote regions. This was sad after travelling together for a couple of weeks, but we may meet up in Cambodia yet!

The yoga class was great, so nice and peaceful at that time in the morning. It was based on decking overlooking the river – a perfect yoga setting. 

 I then finally saw some of the sights in the city itself. Dressing in long trousers and a t shirt with sleeves, I was ready to hit the temples and palace. First Will, Vicky and I walked past the TAEC (Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre), which was recommended in Lonely Planet, so we decided to have look. It was really interesting to learn about the different tribes living in Laos and seeing some of their traditional clothing, textiles and music. We had good fun dressing up at the end 😄.

We then went into to a couple of smaller temples, before seeing the main one, Wat Zieng Thong. After we grabbed some lunch by the riverside, I once again tried laap, the traditional Laos dish. Yummy!

Vicky then went off to chill as she’d already done the Royal Palace Museum and we met up with Sarah to look round. It was interesting, it was the house and former royal palace of King Sisavang Vong from the early – mid 1900s (no photos allowed). Will ran off half way round to go catch his flight, another goodbye. And then low and behold, once again I bump into the British couple from the Vang Vieng bus! We chatted for a bit, and all 4 of us noted how there were cabinets displaying gifts from counties all over the world, but nothing from the UK. 🤔

We’d headed back to the hostel and found Vicky, as we’d chatted earlier about getting a massage. This was an interesting experience, we walked into a room with mattresses on the floor and sheets round them for privacy. We laughed as we were told to strip down to underwear in this weird, random place! Sarah and I had the oil massage, it was ok, very odd but where she pulls your fingers and toes out and clicks them 🙄. We’d bartered for a discount as that’s what you’re meant to do everywhere, but the owner seemed really pissed at the girl who’d offered the discount to us, oops 😬.

A few of Vicky’s friends from her tour bus were meeting for cocktails in the evening, so it was a quick turnaround to get showered and ready to go out. The roof top bar was at the top of the Indigo Cafe, which overlooks the night market. It was bogof between 6.30-7pm, we just made it to sneak a couple of cocktails in and had good chat to a few other travellers. After that it was back to the night market and the veggie buffet 🙌, I also shared bqq fish with Vicky, which was soooooo nice.

Big Sister Mouse Cancelled

When I initially decided to extend my stay in LP I had thought about flying out on the Monday 8th October, but I wanted to join Vicky for this Big Sister Mouse programme, which entailed a journey out to a local village for a full day helping children learn and practice English. So on the Monday morning we got up early, rushed breakfast and even got a tuk tuk to the Big Brother Mouse place to ensure we were there for the pick up at 9am. Only then to find that the big sister mouse programme wasn’t running that day, as it was a teacher training day……. bummer 😞. We were so disappointed as it was out last day! However, we stayed for a couple of hours at the big brother mouse programme that runs every week day in LP city centre and chatted to Laos students between the ages of 17 – 22 to help them practice and get to know a bit about their way of life. It was really interesting and they’re English was really good! Especially the older ones.

We then went for a coffee and cake to see what we wanted to do next, as we suddenly had most of a day to fill. We ended up back at Utopia and had a chill out, chat and some admin catch up. 

In the evening me, Sarah and Miles, another traveller on Vicky’s bus tour, went to the Dyen Sabai restaurant just over the river that you took a less than 5 min boat ride to get to. The restaurant’s speciality was the local cook your own bbq and tasting pot. We shared and ordered fish for me and chicken for them, it also came with egg, veg and a broth that you heat on top of a bbq bucket and cook your own! It was soooooo tasty. I ate far too much though. 

Final day in LP

An early start today – one of the nice touristy things to see in LP is the morning alms giving, which takes place at sunrise. I met Sarah at 5.50am and we found a quiet less touristy spot to watch the monks take the offerings off the local people. It was a really nice, surreal and peaceful affair, I’m glad we dragged our arses out of bed for it! But we then went back to bed for a while. 

I had breakfast and then needed to pack, everything had shifted around a bit and as I was flying that afternoon, I needed to take everything out and completely re pack. I checked out and ordered my airport tuk tuk for later, then went to meet Sarah for a proper English brew, with real fresh milk! It was twinnings and everything! We chatted and planned the next part of our trips, as the cafe had loads of travel books. As Sarah lives in Brisbane, we’re hopefully going to meet up when me & Tom are there! We then went for lunch, I had a huge salad, which was really good, before heading back to the hostel to catch my flight to Hanoi.