It’s the 27th now of December, and we’re still in Luang Prabang. The weather yesterday was pretty much all rainy, so rainy that we didn’t get to do very much. Not that that is too bad, I find that every few days just stopping to relax is a good thing. It actually got us prepared for today which was full of planned visits to nearby tourist stops.
Our first stop was a whiskey making/brewing village. I don’t know though, when we got there it was more of a souvenir place than anything else. The village itself was supposed to be the one that supplies the area with whiskey, but there was only two people making it while we were there. The village was packed with small shops selling lots of trinkets, and some whiskey. One of the things about the whiskey that is all over Laos is that it usually has some sort of animal suspended in the bottle. Sometimes it’s a gecko and sometimes it’s a scorpion, but most of the time its a snake. It’s really kind of bizarre to see a small King Cobra with it’s hood spread looking at you from inside the bottle of whiskey. I don’t know why you would like to drink something that has a snake soaking in it, but hey, it’s what they do.
After that we went to a weaving village. There were more people actually doing what the village was supposedly known for, weaving, but still lots of shops selling items to the tourists. It’s not a bad thing that they are selling though. I bought some stationary but nothing more.
Then we went to one of the better places, a park with a very large, and very beautiful waterfall. Mind you, it was still overcast, but not raining, so we didn’t get the full beauty of the waterfall with sunlight hitting it. There were more than just one falls, in fact there were many, some very large, and others that were small. Some came from large ponds, and some from streams. It was very picturesque and I hope the pictures that I’ve taken give it justice.
Tomorrow we head out early in the morning for about a six-hour bus ride to the next city. From what I’ve heard this next village has even more tourists than this one. Just a side note, I broke my camera a few nights ago. I guess I must have bumped into something because I broke the display. The camera still works, but I can’t tell what I’m aiming at when I take a photo, so although I’m trying to compensate by taking more photos, I’m having some problems actually getting decent compositions.
One kind of funny thing, as I’m sitting here, the tv across the room is showing people make bungi sticks and other traps for American soldiers during the Vietnam War… the hotel clerk saw me watching and said, “American our friends.” with a big smile.
