Today was our last day in Luang Prabang. Having missed out on yesterday’s events, I was keen to get one last chance to walk around the town and soak up the atmosphere. Having been on the go for the last few days, DW took the opportunity to have a rest day by the pool. The girls joined me for the walk, The Boy decided to stay with mummy and splash in the pool.

We generally just ambled around, although we did make a point of crossing over the bamboo bridge over the Nam Khan. This bridge only exists in the dry season. It gets washed away by the much higher river level in the wet season, and is then rebuilt each year.

It’s much more rural on the other side of the bridge:

When we crossed back over the bridge, we sat down on a wall for a breather. A local secondary school class happened to walk by as we were sitting there. White folk are reasonably frequent here, but white school kids are not, and twin white blond-haired school kids even less so. All four of the kids have been very popular with locals and Chinese tourists so far. Apparently touching a blond haired boy brings good luck so The Boy is especially popular, but the girls are too. So we weren’t that surprised when the local school kids asked if they could take some photos. We said fine so long as we could too! Several of them couldn’t resist rubbing Eldest Girl’s skin to see if her pale complexion was real, or make-up….

One of the (few) legacies of the French era is great bakeries and coffee shops. So further along on our stroll, we stopped in one for a floosie for me and ice-cream for the girls.

This being Luang Prabang, you can’t go too far without coming across yet another temple, so of course we had to call in to one or two more. In the one right by our hotel, we were just wandering around when one of the novice monks came across and started to speak to us in very good English. He’s from a rural community nearby, and he was interested to know where we were from and to get a chance to practice his English. His name was Noi, and he kindly agreed to us getting a photo with him.

Luang Prabang is a beautiful, magical place. Here’s a few more photos: