Sabaidee

This morning we woke up at just gone 5 to get out and wait for what's called Tak Bat, the daily offering to the monks. People line the streets and give offerings to the apprentice monks as they pass in procession through the centre streets. It was quite nice to watch but tourists ruin it. All over the town are signs saying 'Respect the Bat' with rules that must be followed like wear the appropriate clothes and don t follow the monks or get too close. People seem to ignore them and do as they wish which I'm starting to realise is incredibly disrespectful. After that we had a quick wander through the early morning food markets (there were pink eggs!!) and had a quick coffee before I went to a yoga class by the river and Matt went off on his own somewhere. 

The yoga class was at a place called Utopia, a restaurant and bar, which I thought was a bit pretentious but there was a platform overlooking the river where we placed our mats and started the hour session. It started at half 7 but I was sweating so much. Moves that I would usually be able to do easily I was finding really hard so I blamed the heat. It was really good though and very popular with a class size of about 15 people. I guess it's just nice to say I did yoga when I was in Laos. 

I'd vaguely said to Matt to meet me after yoga at the place or I'll walk back to the hostel if he wasn't there. I walked out at around 8.35 and he wasn't there so walked back. He wasn't at the hostel either so I sat down on the big (and only) table in the reception area and ate some banana pancakes whilst waiting for Matt. After around half an hour I'd had a nice chat with some people but Matt still wasn't back. I checked to see if the bike was still there like it had been when I returned from yoga but it had gone so I waited for another half an hour at least but still no sign. By that point I decided to shower and wait in the room for him. Eventually he wandered in saying he'd been in and out of the hostel at least 3 times and hadn't seen me. Yes, I had my back to the door but I'd sat in the same place for over an hour. He'd gone off exploring and seen a museum I wanted to see so I was a little irritated with him. I swear boys are blind. 

However, we finally managed to get back into town and stopped at a Buddhist exhibition that seemed interesting. It was a lot smaller than I thought, only showing pictures of monks at various retreats. Don't get me wrong, the pictures were amazing, but I thought there may be more information into a monks day to day life or something like that. Nevertheless, we took our time looking at the photos before heading over the road to the most famous temple in Luang Prabang: Xieng Thong. It was amazing! It must have been built in the time where people enjoyed sparkly things as all of the little buildings and the main temples had glittery tiles, making parts of them look a bit disco ball esque but in a really good way. The goldness made them look a lot grander than a disco ball. I was nicely amazed. 

For lunch we found a restaurant down the street from the temple and both ate some noodles (I also FaceTimed my mummy as its her birthday today). The noodles were okay but nothing to brag about. I've had better. After food we headed to a bridge we'd noticed the other day that crossed the river. It's made of bamboo and is only there during dry season (still hasn't rained much even though it's now rainy season) as they rebuild it each year. We crossed the bridge (paying a little fee to contribute to rebuilding it) and saw a sign for a free jewellery making class. The words 'free' and 'class' excite us both so we went to check it out. It was a little jewellery shop where you picked out a piece you liked the look of and they'd teach you how to make it. I chose a ring and sat out on the balcony on cushions and made it. I'm very proud of it and obviously bought it afterwards but some may laugh at my attempt. The shop was amazing though; I could have bought half of the stuff. And the girl that ran it was so sweet with amazing English. My ring was too small when I'd finished it so she tried super hard to make it bigger. Apparently I have fat fingers. I tried to explain that the heat makes my hands and feet swell but the girl had never heard of such a thing. She wondered if she were to visit Europe would she shrink. I just accepted the fact that my fingers are fat. 

We took a short walk around the new area we had found after the jewellery shop but there wasn't much happening so Matt agreed to go back to the museum he went to without me this morning. He went and got a drink in the cafe whilst I looked around the Arts and Ethnology centre which explains about the four different kinds of tribes there are in Laos and how they live their lives. The museum was a little too hot for me so I wasn't concentrating as well as I should have been and some of the information I thought was either common sense or I'd seen it before in Vietnam or places. I didn't spend long in the centre but we didn't have much time anyway as our bus to Thailand was at 5pm. 

Back with our bags at the hostel we got a tuk tuk to the bus station to catch our bus to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. We were saying Sabaidee (hello or goodbye) to Laos. Six countries down, six to go.