Where's Jane
 Royal Palace Museum, Slippers, and Elephants After a non-too produtive day yesterday, i was on a bit of a mission to see some of Luang Prabang today. We went for a great breakfast to JoMa cafe (the same place i went to in Ventiane - all chunky dark wood tables, awesome coffee and big English language newspapers - all very 'The Station on a Sunday') and sat at an outside table enjoying the relative coolness (relative to the 88degrees it gets up to at around 11am here- sorry to rub it in for those of you in the Uk) before heading off to the Royal Palace Museum a couple of doors down. Having not been to anything of the sort for a few weeks (watching 'Not another teen movie' is probably the closest thing to doing something cultural in the ten days or so!) i loved it, looking at EVERYTHING and reading all of the descriptions of the artifacts (poor Darren had to spend about an hour longer in there waiting for me to 'catch up' than he would have had he gone alone!). The palace was gorgerous - all reds and greens and golds, with glass mosaics on the walls of the main room, the biggest wardrobe i have ever seen in the Kings bedroom, and some cool pictures and paintings depicting local legends , including a very strange one about a king who kept giving things away -honestly it was like some kind of obsessive compulsive thing, first it was the kingdoms best elephant, then it escalated to things like his cjildren and then his wife! Maybe its just a bit lost in translation and i've missed some deep moral tale or point to the story..who knows. We met up with Heather ( an American girl i had met in Vientiane) briefly, saw an art exhibition (no culture for weeks, then LOADS in one day!) then went to a bookshop (L'etranger) with a great cafe upstairs. L'Etranger is gorgeous - packed with all manner of books downstairs where you could no doubt spend hours, then a 'loungeing cafe' upstairs - no chairs, just futon style cushions and bolster pillows around low set tables. For 3 hours we sat and contentedly lounged. Darren planned his trip onward, and i ate cake and tried to make just one decision (for some reason my powers of decision making seem to have escaped me since the begining of the month and i am becoming a bit of a faffer it seems- hopefully this wont last for too long though as i need to get outof this city at some point!). We met Heather again at the night market, Darren bought more pairs of slippers than you could shake a stick at as well as some other presents for people at home, i bought a little red elephant for myself, then we went for a great pizza before. More beers are planned for tonight at the Lao Lao Bar. Darren leaves tomorrow, and i am planning to go and scope out a volunteering opportunity i have read about. :O)
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Diary Photos
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View from the hilltop |
 Royal Palace Museum - Luang Prabang |
 View from the Royal Palace Museum |
 Wat Royal Palace Museum |
 Darren - L'etranger boookshop |
 Luang Prabang |
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