Bus Ride to Luang Prabang

This morning we took a bus ride to Luang Prabang, a UNESCO world heritage city. The bus ride was supposed to be about 5 hours, but 8 or 9 hours later we arrived... I think I slept for most of the trip though so that's ok. We stopped along the way at an awesome viewpoint with views overlooking the valleys and mountains. Whoever designed the bathrooms clearly thought so too because the toilets had open air views of the valley.

When we arrived in Luang Prabang we settled into our rooms and wandered around a bit. The city is charming, quaint, and cute! And because it's a world heritage city, there's a strictly enforced curfew of 11pm where everything shuts down, except for one bowling alley. It will make for a bit quieter of a trip I think and I'm looking forward to that! There are so many monks here too! We saw 3 just on the short 2 minute walk from the bus to the guest house.

We met the group shortly after and all went to Utopia Restaurant for dinner. That was pretty cool! Their motto is "Zen during the day and wild at night" or something similar. I saw the Zen part for sure! There are winding paths and planted areas, different seating styles of stumps, benches, repurposed missiles, and cushions on the floors. There were split levels too with some seating secluded down a few steps, and there's even a beach volleyball court. All a 2 minute walk from our guest house. Our group sat at one of the cushions on the floor tables with a river view, although it was kind of too dark to see properly by the time I noticed it. I had a tuna melt sandwich that was delicious!

After dinner the group returned to the guest house to drink and play card games. I wasn't feeling it so I hung out in my room alone for a bit, decompressing. I almost fell asleep but figured I'd wander outside and see what was happening. Guess the group had gone back to Utopia and as I was about to go back to bed they all came back. They were heading bowling! Since it was probably the only opportunity I'll get I decided to join them.

The bowling alley is the only place on late in the city that is open late and is about a 10 minute tuk Tuk ride away. Once there we bought a 26 of vodka, mix, and ice to share for only 70,000 kip or about $11.50 CAD. Bowling was 20,000 each for a game of 10 pin and because it's Asia we bowled barefoot which is so much easier than wearing those annoying shoes like we have to at home! I was one of the only sober members of our group so it was quite entertaining, especially when on the second round of bowling they decided it would be a "fun" round. I watched this round because I didn't bring enough cash out with me to play again, and I'm quite okay with that. The fun rounds involved bowling from the ground, backwards, doing dance moves, finding a stranger to bowl for you, etc etc. I was so exhausted by the time they were finally finished the 2nd round I thought I was going to fall asleep at the table.Read more