Luang prabang Day 2

Woke up early to get to Saffron Cafe for our excellent breakfast! 

Latte and cuppocino (17,000 kip)  big breakfast (49,000 kip)
and burrito (30,000 kip)  

And then it was a very very cold ride in an almost open boat to
 Whisky Village and Pak Ou Caves

It was so cold and we wereso not dressed in woolly winter wear
and my daughter who was dressed only in a thin denim jacket and
 had an even thinner scarf to wrap herself with, was frozen
 during the 2 hour boat ride. Here the villagers share their fire with her! 

 I was okay and walked around the village called Ban Xang Hai
where villagers demonstrate the distillation process : here
  rice flour ferments in jars for 15 days.

The alcohol is sometimes combined with scorpions and snakes
in clear bottles for added potency...a beverage clearly for the
 more adventurous!  

Then it was back to the boat again to get to the caves 

How our boat looks like....

The scenery here is fantastic and we could pose all day!
But it was time for us to climb up to caves where more than
 4000 statues of Buddha can be found in every nook and corner. 

The lower cave is only a few dozen steps from rhe jetty but the
upper cave takes more than 200 steps up and they look craggy
and perilous so I gave it a miss, and the better too, because a
French couple who got back to the boat past the stipulated time
 got a shelling from the boatman!!! 

Waiting for the other passengers who were late. 

We went back to our residence and this girl took the opportunity
to bundle up after freezing her butt off  on the boat ride home!
 We learnt from social media too that in Malaysia and Singapore
folks back home were experiencing ‘winter’ too at 22 degrees and lower!

After a nap we went to look for late lunch of tom yam fried rice
and pad thai... Laos food is Thai and Burmese cuisine combined 

Then it was pasar malam tine and we managed to buy a hoodie
for daughter so she could face the rest of her trip comfortably bundled up! 

Look at her... she loves her winter ‘parka cum hoodie’ as it keeps her snug! 

The night market in Luang Prabang showcases handmade traditional 
souvenirs and crafts; the traders here are artisans and rhey come from
 near and far. Buying from them means you take home exceptionally 
crafted goods and contribute towards sustaining local communities like 
the Hmong tribes.

It was tine for dinner to end our 2nd day in LB and what better
way than to have it with BEERLAO!!!!!