Every morning, the monks in LP (and there are a ton of them, as this really is the land of wats) proceed through the town and collect alms from the Buddhist faithful. It’s an important part of their culture, and sadly it seems as if the tourists have been ruining it (crowding the street to watch the monks pass by, getting in their way, and distracting them with photographs). We were a little worried since we had heard the procession can be quite loud and our hotel room faced right onto the main street, but we never heard it. If we hadn’t just naturally woken up early today, we would have missed it entirely. As it was, we barely caught the tail end. Here’s a blurred photo (very artistic, eh?) of some of the monks walking in front of our hotel. We didn’t see any locals offering alms – maybe that happens farther along?
Today was our outdoor adventure in Laos. We spent the day rafting on the Nam Xeung river, starting about two hours outside of LP. We used
Green Discovery for our trip, and they seem to have a good number of options (and they operate out of just about every part of Laos). We picked the Nam Xeung since it was supposed to be more exciting than the other rivers at the time. There were three rapids on our trip – a Class 1, Class 3 and Class 2. The Class 3 rapid was fun, but otherwise it was a little weak. In between, we had large stretches of calm river – good for swimming, but not as interesting. The trip was fun and were rafting with a bunch of Scots, plus a couple of fellow Americans, Andy and Harsh, who had just graduated from UCLA.
On the way back to the hotel, Matt stopped at the burger stand on the side of road proclaiming “Good Taste and Cheapest Burger in LP.” For a little under $2, it was actually pretty good. The bun was great, and the flavors were all good, they just need to work on their patty formation. Later, we went out for dinner at Apsara, a hotel around the corner from our own hotel. Dinner was quite good, and there was only one other table occupied while we were there.
Every morning, the monks in LP (and there are a ton of them, as this really is the land of wats) proceed through the town and collect alms from the Buddhist faithful. It’s an important part of their culture, and sadly it seems as if the tourists have been ruining it (crowding the street to watch the monks pass by, getting in their way, and distracting them with photographs). We were a little worried since we had heard the procession can be quite loud and our hotel room faced right onto the main street, but we never heard it. If we hadn’t just naturally woken up early today, we would have missed it entirely. As it was, we barely caught the tail end. Here’s a blurred photo (very artistic, eh?) of some of the monks walking in front of our hotel. We didn’t see any locals offering alms – maybe that happens farther along?
Today was our outdoor adventure in Laos. We spent the day rafting on the Nam Xeung river, starting about two hours outside of LP. We used Green Discovery for our trip, and they seem to have a good number of options (and they operate out of just about every part of Laos). We picked the Nam Xeung since it was supposed to be more exciting than the other rivers at the time. There were three rapids on our trip – a Class 1, Class 3 and Class 2. The Class 3 rapid was fun, but otherwise it was a little weak. In between, we had large stretches of calm river – good for swimming, but not as interesting. The trip was fun and were rafting with a bunch of Scots, plus a couple of fellow Americans, Andy and Harsh, who had just graduated from UCLA. 
On the way back to the hotel, Matt stopped at the burger stand on the side of road proclaiming “Good Taste and Cheapest Burger in LP.” For a little under $2, it was actually pretty good. The bun was great, and the flavors were all good, they just need to work on their patty formation. Later, we went out for dinner at Apsara, a hotel around the corner from our own hotel. Dinner was quite good, and there was only one other table occupied while we were there.
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