Boarding our Laos Airlines flight from Chiang Mai
Sadly, the only part of Laos we saw was Luang Prabang. After falling in love with it over 5 days, spending New Years Eve (Veronica’s birthday) there, we wish we would have stayed longer and explored more.
Our Airbnb was a double bed room within a homestay – smack in the middle of town.
The location couldn’t be beat, but beware. The walls in these traditional homes have no insulation. You’ll hear all of your neighbors. That said, it was really convenient to be right around the corner from an alms giving route and many wonderful sites and bites.
Here’s a taste of what we experienced.
Breakfast at Dexter 
Obama drank here 
The official NYE party 
Alms Giving Ceremony
We woke up super early before 5am to catch the alms giving ceremony, hoping to get a good photo. On our way out of the homestay though, we were asked if we wanted to give rice to the monks as part of the morning ceremony. We said sure, thinking it’d be a little basket and we could do it quickly. We waited a minute and before we knew it we were being escorted to the corner street by an older woman with lots of rice and mat. She sat us down and we waited. It was a bit awkward, as all we really wanted was to take a photo. Vero stepped away to get a shot, but unfortunately her camera’s memory card went on the fritz and saved nothing.
On our last morning, I got up early to get a video with my GoPro. It was pretty dark – so apologies for the poor quality. If you fast forward towards the middle though, you can see the monks dressed in orange passing under the streetlight.
Mount Phousi
Mount Phousi overlooks Luang Prabang. There are a few entrances to the top, but we much preferred the quieter route (entrance near Icon Klub). Just after the alms giving, this way was empty pretty much all the way to the top.
