The Bagelgate Incident of Luang Prabang

Sorry for the lack of updates recently -- been busy and in some places that don't have internet access. I'll try and get you all caught up today.

When I left off, it was still my first day in Luang Prabang. As we roamed around town for a few hours, we kept running into people from our boat trip. It's a small town, and running into people we knew was inevitable. We told them about our plans for that night -- temple at sunset, all-you-can-fit-on-one-plate-vegetarian-buffet for 5000 kip (CA$0.60) for dinner, followed by general partying.

By the time we got to the el-cheapo vegetarian buffet, I was surprised with how much the word had spread. Something like 15 or 20 people from the slow boat had shown up for dinner. Given the number of empty bottles of Beer Lao on the table, many of them had already been drinking hard for a while. I felt pretty cool, since I knew I had a big part in the formation of this impromptu party!

From the veggie buffet we went to a bar called "The Hive" where we drank until it closed at 11:30 PM. Why so early? Laos has a curfew -- people are supposed to be at home by midnight. Foreigners get a little leeway, though. There is only one place in Luang Prabang where you can continue to drink after hours -- the BOWLING ALLEY. We all found tuk-tuks or scooters to take us there where we continued the party. They don't force you to wear bowling shoes there, so it was the first time I ever got to bowl in my bare feet. I think though, that lack-of-shoes, tiredness, and drunkenness had gotten the better of me by that point, since I rolled the meagre score of NINETEEN. Worst... bowling... ever.

We bowled with a few French people, where I got to use my very corniest lines in French... garbage like "De quelle coleur est la oiseaux dans la cuisine?" ("what colour is the bird in the kitchen?") and "Qu-est-que c'est la vie avec la bowling?" ("what is the life with bowling?"), and the classic "VIVE LA BOWLING!" They were very friendly and thought my crappy French skills were pretty entertaining.

The next day the day that we went to the waterfall in Luang Prabang. It is apparently "the" place to go in Luang Prabang. It must be, after all, since all of the tuk-tuk drivers want to take you there. You can't walk down the main street without being asked by a dozen tuk-tuk drivers to take you there. They don't push you to go (like a Thai tuk-tuk driver would -- so pushy they are), but they will usually ask you like once each. It must be good money for them, since it takes like an hour to get there and an hour back.

This place was really sweet. There were lots of different swimming pools to play in, including one with a rope swing. The waterfall itself was very pretty and afforded many photo opportunities. Sadly, the internet access in this cafe is pretty slow, so I'm having a lot of trouble uploading the pictures directly to my blog. You can check out the pictures on my Picasa Web Albums page directly.

I was surprised with how touristy Luang Prabang really is. I was lead to believe that Laos was an undeveloped country with few tourists. How far from the truth that really is. Since being opened to tourism about 10 years ago, the scene in Luang Prabang was really taken off. It used to be only backpackers that came here, but now its been colonized by "real" tourists, too. There are plenty of swanky guesthouses, hotels, cafes, and bistros to use. The tourism facilities are really excellent here. As a result, its somewhat more expensive to stay here than the rest of Laos, as I later discovered.

Pong met up with again later on his last night in Luang Prabang. He announced his good news to us... he had successfully made the deal with the owners of the guesthouse he was interested in. He was going to enter into a partnership with them and open the very first hostel in Laos -- the Spicylao Backpackers. We took a look at the house. It's an old French building that has been UNESCO World Heritage Listed (just like the city of Luang Prabang itself). It definitely shows potential to be a good hostel, and I'm sure that Pong will turn it into something wonderful. I felt special to play even a very small role in the creation of the first hostel in the whole country of Laos. So cool!

That night we met up with Pong for dinner to celebrate his new business venture. We went for traditional Laotian food, then wandered over to a bar that caught my eye with its supply of Belgian Beer (imagine -- finding Chimay Blue in Laos!). We finished the night with a bucket of liquor at Lao Lao Garden.

My last morning in Luang Prabang was spent at Joma cafe, of course. We actually ended up going to that cafe every single day. I was never the kind of person who would go to a cafe just to hang out for hours before, but Joma converted me.

Anyways, I ordered a multigrain bagel with ham, cheese, egg, and mayo. So tasty, and so good. Chris and Alex both ordered bagels, too, but didn't say they wanted multigrain ones. As we sat at the table, I received my multigrain bagel and ate it happily. Chris and Alex received multigrain bagels, too. It was a little confusing, but not a big deal. As we ate our multigrain bagels we noticed some confusion in the cafe. A few of the other people seemed to have received plain bagels instead of the multigrain bagels they ordered. It seems that the cafe served them to us by mistake. Ooops! But it wasn't our fault. One person marched out of the cafe and gave us a dirty look that we clearly didn't deserve. Two other people looked over at us, pointed directly at us, and exclaimed (loud enough for us to hear), "OUR BAGELS. THEY ARE EATING THEM!". Obviously they weren't impressed either (and obviously they wanted us to know). Too bad for them. We were the ones with the multigrain bagels!

Even though that was a week ago now, we still joke about the Bagelgate Incident at Joma Cafe.