Luang Prabang is a beautiful little city of about fifty thousand people. Quite big by Lao standards. Like Vientiane it is obviously an ex-French colony and so much the richer for it. What makes Luang Prabang special is the atmosphere and general feel of the place. It is a very relaxed, clean and pleasant to exist in for a while. There isn't all that many wonderful things to point your camera at in Luang Prabang other than Wat Chom Si but there is plenty of French influence in it's coffee shops and patisseries to enjoy. The houses here are different to elsewere in Laos. They are small and made from wood and well painted and cared for and it's a pleasant place to walk through. Searing off-season heat didn't help with out enjoyment however.

Luang Prabang sits at the junction of two rivers and having a $1 beer Lao while watching the fisherman was a nice way to relax and avoid the oppressive heat.

Wat Chom Si sits on top of a hill in the middle of town and is a place of great importance to the Buddhist community. I don't know enough about Buddhism to wax lyrical about the significance of the statues at the Wat but they certainly were beautiful.

This is our car after Julian gave it a thorough clean. It's looking very dignified here. We passed a car wash that had a pit and Julian couldn't resist the opportunity to give it a proper wash which it certainly needed. Earlier on it sustained some damage! Laos is a communist country and they tend to have fairly strict alcohol laws. This includes most licensed premises closing at eleven. The only thing that remains open after that is a bowling alley, of all things, so everyone goes off to the quite infamous bowling alley. As we had a car and were acceptably sober we offered to give people a lift and had many takers. Soon we had six people in our little Italian car and it was off to bowling. On the way we came across a dirt road that had to be crossed and there was a rock protruding out of the sand which I simply drove over as it wasn't very big. Unfortunately with six people on board the little Alfa didn't have much ground clearance and the impact with the exhaust made an enormous wallop. We hit it hard enough to crack the exhaust manifold. Damn. Now we have a little noise as the exhaust gases escape from the gasket. Not catastrophic but slightly annoying. Realistically, we will have to live with the crack till Australia as it does not impede the car in any way and won't get any worse. The Alfa had made it all the way to Northern Laos before being baptised into Perth to Paris.