Emmy in the Rice Paddy: Brendan in Luang Prabang!

On a spontaneously fun whim, my Aussie friend who I met in Ubon, Brendan, and I were able to meet up for TWO full days in the beautiful Luang Prabang. I emailed him the name of the guesthouse I was staying at, and sure enough, around 10am a van pulled up with him in it! We decided that it would be fun to rent bicycles for the day and to bike around picturesque Luang Prabang. On the (one) main street in Luang Prabang there are tons of shops advertising bicycles for rent. However, they all seemed to be charging 15,000 kip/ day (about $2), and having just done the same in Hoi An and being cheap, we didn't want to go over a dollar haha. We perused the different shops and walked all the way down the street. After about 45 minutes of bargaining with bicycle renters (no one would budge!) we found a man, a smart business man, who would bargain. One dollar is better than two dollars if your bike is just going to go unrented and sit depreciating value, right?! :) Brendan and I laughed at the thought that all of the bicycles in Luang Prabang were owned by the same family...bicycle monopoly!

Our first stop was the beautiful Wat Poan Pao- the golden majestic wat that I'd seen the previous day from my view at the top of Wat Phu Si. We biked there, and didn't even get lost! It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day. At the wat itself, there were no other tourists there (perhaps being a ways out from the main street). We enjoyed the peacefulness, and the one nun who urged us to come in. From Wat Phu Si, we biked to 2 more famous wats nearby. It was a wonderful wat-touring bicycle day! When we finally returned, we stopped for fruit shakes. I had three different drinks (I drank until I felt sick!) and Brendan had two. Then we had a long dinner outside, followed by an even longer shopping spree at the beautiful night market. We both bought matching buddha artwork, and I bought a beautiful silk-stitched bag :)