vestigesoftime: Luang Prabang, you sound like my lover.

It was a rush-backpacking trip for us since we only had 4 weeks during winter break to travel around and by the time we got on the sleeper bus to Luang Prabang, our only concern was proper surfaces to rest our energy-drained masses. Safety, maybe after we sleep.

Never understood love at first sight until I set my eyes on the streets of Luang Prabang. It was a perfect fusion of tourism settling into the cultural scene, not in a blatant way. Luang Prabang is definitely not a place where they are obsessed with ‘out with the old, in with the new’; it was indeed pleasing for the eyes and mind, for once, that the tourists here are actually abiding to the cultural norms and not have half their said-assets drooping out of their well-backpacked-backpackers clothes.

The Royal Palace in the heart of the City

200 odd steps to the top of Mount PhouSi. Located right beside the Royal Palace. We reached Luang Prabang that morning, so we did not have tours planned, Mount PhouSi made a good day trip; overlooking the entire city and Mekong River.

Rugged shoes

my dishevelled face

the little temple at the top of the mountain
there are a few monks who are pretty open and friendly to tourists where you can talk to them

Hi-jacked a hotel's backyard to have our lunch with a view

20cents goodness gone in 3 seconds

Night Market. Not sure if it's a daily or weekend-ly event as we were heading back to our rooms to retire for the night, the night market was just starting up and of course, who are we to miss any window-shopping or intense staring at good food? It was one of the favourite night markets out of this entire trips. The goods ranged from hand sewn bags to typical elephant pants to handicrafts to paintings to...

the temperature dipped and my hands trembled as if i had Parkinson

10000kip Buffet

Day 2 spent at Kuangsi waterfalls. Kuangsi waterfalls is 30km off city centre and you can get there via bicycles or rip-off TukTuks. We had everything but time since we were moving on to Hanoi the same evening, we packed our sense of adventure and took a TukTuk instead for approximately 7USD. (As we were on our way up the KuangSi Waterfalls, you have no idea how many times i secretly thanked all Gods that we didn't choose the DIY bicycle way. My quads would have died there and then.) If you're into those Chinese blue-green waterfall painting, Kuangsi Waterfall is the place you'll dig. It felt as if I walked into a Chinese painting by accident.