Arrival

We arrived in Luang Prabang without having picked a place to stay (as is customary when traveling with Colin & Daniel). This is the same way I met Sow last year, so I try not to knock it. It's like a small game of mix-em-up to get things started. What this usually means is you come tumbling out of the airport, travel book in hand, into a mass of people being harassed by a bunch of taxi drivers trying to under bid each other, but at the same time getting you to over pay on the deal.

Here there was no haggling. It was 10,000 kip. 40 baht. 1 dollar. So we teamed up with a couple of other people waiting out front and we all shared a taxi. A lot of the guest houses appeared to be within walking distance. We decided to start low and work our way up. Let's see, what can we get for $4-8?

The driver dropped us at the Chilany guest house. A rustic place that I hoped had seen better days. Tile floors downstairs. Wood walls. Creaky wood floors upstairs. Not much too look at, but the owner and his wife were really nice and spoke great English. Also they had available rooms for $6 with an upgrade to a private bathroom the following day. "Private bathroom. I can hold it for 24 hrs if you can!" There was a lot of talk about just spending one night, but when it came to acting on it, getting 3-4 hungry people to stick on the subject was not going to happen and we just ended up upgrading bathrooms the next day.

The view across from our guest house.
The Mekong River.
That middle boat is the owner's brother's boat.