Luang Prabang is a busy place

After our flight & tuk tuk ride into town, I was surprised by how busy the town was. I had been here for 5 days in 2004, and the town was more serene. Good luck had shined on the town, as there were many more tourists & guesthouses, which must have resulted in all of the motorbikes & cars that were driving around the town. All of the streets & buildings looked a bit more polished as well. I learned that Luang Prabang was getting ready for a huge airport project, which would lengthen its runway to allow Airbus-size jets to land. I secretly thanked myself for visiting one last time before the town would undergo a huge change that may make it similar to Chang Mai.

On the way into town, we met a French woman (Eleanor) & a Canadian (Sean), who we agreed to meet up with for dinner. After a day spent wandering around the tourist sites in the old town, we met up with Eleanor at 7pm. (I had seen all of this previously, so I walked James around to the places that I deemed to be the best temples to visit.) We ended up running into Sean, who was staying elsewhere in the town. We headed to the night market for some cheap food, and spent the rest of the evening chatting & eating large quantities of food. I was loving the prices here - I spent about $1 on a plate of vegetarian food and $2 of several large bottles of Beer Lao.