Lurang Prabang

My third morning in Lurang Prabang and it was time to get on a bicycle. I am obviously able to walk anywhere and most of the things I wanted to see in Lurang Prabang were close together but still.....I really enjoy cycling and I can cover way more ground. After living in two different countries I like to see stuff other than what is in a guide book, I want to see, I guess, normal life. And I feel that I can do that better from a bicycle than I can on foot. When I am on foot I seem to be more concentrated on getting to where I am going, whereas when I am on a bicycle I am more willing to ride down a road just because it looks interesting and its less of a problem if it takes me out of my way or it doesn't go anywhere. I went to Wat Xieng Thong first and took a look around, it's the main temple here. I am trying not to be too dismissive of temples but it is hard not to be "templed out". Although the temples here in Laos are very different from those in Vietnam they are not very different from each other. The temple is made up of the main worship hall, a few smaller halls, the float garage and some stupas. I looked around and tried to dodge the tourist groups. Despite being on the backpacker trail the town also attracts well heeled middle aged tourists and this has changed the kind of accommodation on offer as well resulting in tour groups. I cycled to the outskirts of town to another temple, the Santi Chedi. The main hall is octagonal in shape and painted gold outside, unfortunately I arrived just as it was closing for lunch so I went back into town to my hostel. The previous day I had asked if I could stay another night, they had said it wouldn't be a problem. It was a problem, I had to change hostels. Luckily my hostel has two locations, so I moved to the second one, which I think I prefer. I went to the library, they ask visitors to come and help the locals practice their English. At first there were more Westerners than locals, but that changed and I ended up talking to a seventeen year old monk. It was so interesting and I think it benefited me more than it did the monk. I got to ask a lot of questions and have them answered. The monks are only allowed to eat between 6am and midday, they cannot touch women and seem to have a lot more opportunities than ordinary teenagers their age in Laos. The monk I spoke to was studying English and Japanese and hoped to be able to attend university in Singapore. A foreign university is way outside what an ordinary Laotian family can afford. I left the library with Emma, another tourist, who had dropped in to help. She had also rented a bicycle and we cycled out to Santi Chedi, I got to go in this time. The inside of the temple is divided into four levels, the first story tells the story of how Buddha came into existence. We had it to ourselves for ages. I am glad I went back, it was worth it. I wandered through the night market for a while, again so different from Vietnam. In Vietnam they say that they close off the road for a market but you still get people coming through on a motorbike. Not in Laos, the road really is closed off. Awesome but more than that. The Laotians driving behaviour is different, they don't use their horns and seem to be so much more patient than the Vietnamese, they will wait for other traffic to pass. The traffic make up is also dissimilar, it's mostly pick up trucks and cars rather than motorbikes. Strange that two countries, physically so close, with so much shared history should have developed along two such divergent paths.