March 2010: Luang Prabang Night, Lao

Having been on the bus since morning, it was great to at last get off at the Luang Prabang bus station. As expected, the "feeding frenzy" starts right as our lugguage got out off the lugguage compartment and hit the dirt.
I remembered back in Angkor Wat, soon as we step off the long distance bus, the locals boys were circling us, ready to grep us onto their bikes and wheeze us to their 'recommended' guest house. And those Khmer boys were vicious. And I remembered the 'recommended' guest room to be stuffy, the shower having water pressure problem, and the water smelling (and tasting) of kerosene.

Here again, the Laotians stands apart from her neighbors. The local boys were much civilized. They were all armed with photoes or pamphlets (or both) of their recommended guest houses. After hearing the pitch of the first boy (let's call him boy A), I went for second opinions. The second boys(boy B) was about to close the deal with me (me ready to hop on the taxi pickup to his guest house), when he realize boy A got to me first. With his arm on boy A's shoulder, boy B actually suggested that I should head over to boy A' guest house: "He is my good friend, you go to his guest house. His guest house also goood." Imagine that. Oh, the camaradarie.

I ended up staying the night at boy B's guest house. For they have aircon. And luckily, the room was much like what I saw on his pamphlet.
By the time I have freshen up in the room, the sun has set. The only thing to do was to check out the Hmong night market near the Mekong river bank(yep, that same old river again.) I will have to say the Luang Prabang night market is the quietest night market I have been to. Non of the loud music and bargaining at night market all across Asia (think Patpong.)
The same can be said about the many restuarants that line the street next to the river bank. It's all warm yellow lighting and non of the boom-boom-boom club music. All many of the establishment are serving European food (Belgium, Swiss, etc, etc.) But Laotian food can be found in the open air stalls closer to the river. If you are ever in Luang Prabang, try out the grilled Mekong seaweed with sesame seeds, and Luang Prabang chilli paste.
Somehow, I got lost on the way back to the guest house, and ended up wandering into a temple (a smaller one, probably not on the tourist map.) The temple was having some kind of fun fair on its ground.

Strike!!!
There seems to be quite a bit of gambling here, thinly disguised as fairground games. Here, the 'house' throw a couple of fist-size dices and the 'gamblers' place their wager.
Some monks looks tempted...
...while others succumbed.
Another variation. In the upturned pail is a mouse/rat. Place your wager on any of the numbered holes on the parameter 'wall'.
Once enough wager has been collected, the 'house' knocks three times on the pail, left the pail and wait for rat to rush into the safety of one of the hole. If its your number, you could be the lucky winning of two bottles of Thai energy drink. Yippee!
Oh yes. I did find my way back, thank you.