Pak Beng-Luang Prabang : 2nd day on the Mekong river

- 15 Janvier : Wake up at 7 am, i had a good night after all, even with this bed base just with a  blanket above, a little bit stiff but good. Pleasant warm shower. I pack my bag and give back the keys. I have breakfast at the reception of the guesthouse because they also have a grocery store and buy some stuff to eat for lunch (.i've been made a rice meal to go and a sandwitch).

      I go down the street towards the landing stage, and stop in a bakery and takes one of their famous "croissant" with a real espresso, and  go to the boat. It is already well filled and I take a place in the front part, where seats are in the other direction and where especially it is much less noisy. It is complete to the point that they are obliged to start another boat.

      It is a little bit cloudy and cool this morning but that gets sunny fast. I am better placed to take photos, and i really like this. The journey includes a little more zones with rapids but stays calm altogether . Only a few people from the middle part of the boat had been  sprayed in the contact of a wave in rapids. I finish my book in the afternoon, I am much better settled than the day before then the journey is more pleasant. The  landscape is more sharpenned and gorgeous on this part of the Mekong River. In a village where we stop, some young girls come near the boat, on the rocks, to sell slings and scarfs. We pass near caves full of buddhas, 30 km before Luang Prabang.

     We finally arrive at 5.30 pm after 8 hours. I walk along the city searching for a Guesthouse (i saw one of those on the guide book but couldn't find it) and end up in one near the river, in a house, teak style, dark varnished wood, and a good bed. I have a little rest and go through the city to find some place to eat, already thinking that i'll try the little long market with food I've already seen before when I was looking for a guesthouse.

      I take at first brochettes with the sticky rice flattened and sprayed with a marinade before being burned out, delicious. I comes down in the famous street not far from there and I find the couple of German  which were in the minibus with me since Chiang Mai. I am a little bit indecisive and do not know what to choose: there are lots of barbecues with the chicken tenderloin, the thighs, with the duck, the pieces of breast or some pork chops, and some fish.

      I finally chose a flatfish whom they cook with a shoot of citronella inside and a brochette of livers of chicken, and picked some rice in another stand. It is delicious. I sit at the same table as the German and in front of a couple of Italian of a certain age with whom I begin to talk,. That really amazes my German neighbors who ask me about how many languages I can speak.

      After that I leave to wander in the main street where there is a night market and make some purchases, before going to a bar, the Lao Lao bar in the slogan which really pleased me: " Drink like has fish for the price of water! ". They have WiFi and when I ask for a little beer they bring me down 1L in a jug, I did not understand why he asked me how many glasses? In brief, I almost drank everything in the end (I gave some to the table close to me), the time to answer my e-mails and  update my blog. The curfew is at 11:30 am then I'll have to return soon. The city is really very quiet after the curfew, you return quiet by hearing the noise of your own steps. When I arrive at the guesthouse I am obliged to bang in the door because they closed the main door. I do not wander a lot and am going to sleep at about 0:30 am.