Look, It's Luang Prabang, Laos...

So, after almost dying of heat stroke in Bangkok, I was off to Luang Prabang, Laos.  I arrived here on March 16, 2012.  Let me tell you, it's not much cooler here, but at least it is a small town and it doesn't hold the heat as much as a big city.  Anyway, enough about my petty heat problems.  I'm in Laos!!  I arrived and checked into my most awesome hotel on the Nam Khan River, it's a tributary of the Mekong River.  I have a little bungalow on the river all to myself.  It's pretty awesome.  The people here are great.  I didn't get here until later in the afternoon, so I dumped my stuff, and I was off.  First thing.  The hotel is a little outside of town.  They have bikes here for free, but since it was my first day, I decided walking was a better option.  Takes about 15 minutes to get into the center of town.  To get there, you have to cross this most awesome, scary bridge.  I think maybe it's called the Communist Bridge, well because it was built in the height of Communism.  Maybe, I don't know.  I might be making that up.  It is only open to foot traffic, motorbikes (which there are THOUSANDS of in this town) and regular bikes.  It's kind of a scary thing to cross.  I wasn't scared though.  Honey Badger don't give a shit.  So I was off.  I found the main part of town, after taking a tuk-tuk there since I was a little lazy.  As I got there, they were setting up the night market.  I would say hundreds of people line the main street and sell their stuff.  You can get a lot of cool stuff.  So I wandered through there and then found a bar overlooking the river and stopped for a beer.  Which maybe turned into two beers.  Then I found a great restaurant for dinner.  I had Larb, which is minced meat with spices and herbs.  It was delicious!!!  That meal and another two beers was $10.  Actually a little expensive by Lao standards, but it was awesome.  I was tired, so I decided to walk back to the hotel. I got lost.  Things look different in the dark.  Maybe it's my horrible sense of direction too.  So after wandering for an hour, I wound up back at the night market and grabbed a tuk-tuk.  Home in 5 minutes.  Today was a sort of lazy day planning my time here.  I walked into town.  Found it!!!  Made some plans to go ride some elephants tomorrow.  Then, toured a temple, and had a mango shake.  It was delicious!!  Then, more walking.  And, more walking.  Found another bar on the Mekong River and stopped and had a beer.  Kept walking.  Made it back to my hotel and here I am working on photos and posting things.  It was kind of a relief to get out of the sun and sit on my deck and read too.  Just a relaxing day.  Maybe I will post more tomorrow or maybe not...