Good Morning, Luang Prabang!

Lately the LOTUS travelers have been lagging a little in updating our blog - but for very good reason. We're falling head over heels in love - with Luang Prabang, that is. For the last four days, we've been sleeping, eating, reading, sightseeing and exploring Luang Prabang - the northern gem of Laos. Trying to soak in as much of LP as possible, we've discovered the wonder of waking up early (who knew?!) and leisurely savouring the city.

On our first morning in LP, the three of us awoke after a slightly cramped, though comfortable, night's sleep at the ThanaBoun guesthouse. (Our room being a last minute booking from the previous afternoon, the only free space they could offer us was one double bed for the three of us.) I woke up especially early that morning, eager to start my mission - to find the best croissant in Luang Prabang. In fact, I woke up about three times during the night with visions of buttery, flaky croissants dancing in my head. I remember the croissants in Luang Prabang being so tasty, I honestly could not recall eating any other food I had when I was here two years ago. So, by 7:30 am, I couldn't stand it anymore so I gingerly crawled out of bed to commence my gustatory adventure.

We began at the 3 Nagas hotel/restaurant which serves breakfast in its outdoor cafe. Though the $2.20 price tag for their homemade jam put us off a bit, we ordered it anyway with our three croissants. And oh MAN, were these croissants. None of that airy, dry, Bisquicked, crescent-shaped crap they call croissants in America. This was the real deal - a crisp, flaky golden shell encasing soft, warm layers of densely buttered chewy dough. With the homemade blackberry jam and marmalade - it was perfect. The pot of Lao coffee I got with breakfast had enough caffeine to shake my bones until dinnertime. All in all, a great start for my exploratory study of the Luang Prabang puff pastries.
Next on our agenda for the morning was booking plane tickets back to Chiang Mai and finding another, hopefully cheaper, guesthouse than the ThanaBoun. Naturally, we got lucky finding a room at the Croissant d'Or guesthouse and restaurant. What better place to sleep than in a place called the Golden Croissant? Located down Sisavavong Rd., it was about 50,000 kip (about 8,700 kip = 1 dollar) cheaper and had super soft beds. Plus, there was free Internet. Next, we booked tickets back to Chiang Mai with a very sweet and helpful agent nicknamed Ms. Ice. Unfortunately, we discovered that Lao airlines is very finicky and did not offer flights on Wednesday, June 25th, when we were hoping to go back to Chiang Mai. So, we could only book a flight out on June 26th and stay another day in Luang Prabang. Oh shucks, so disappointing.

Our second morning, we woke up extra early to catch a glimpse of the monks collecting alms on the main road. By the time we had actually gotten out of bed and gotten dressed (6:05 am), we had already missed it. None of us were feeling sleepy any longer so we all went on little walks. Amber climbed up Mt. Phousi to see the morning sun creep above Luang Prabang. Erin caught up with her journal in the Croissant d'Or coffeeshop. I found Big Brother Mouse - an organization/library with a mission to get more Lao/English books to Lao kids. We then reconvened for breakfast at Le Cafe et Restaurant Ban Vat Sene. 
Le Cafe et Restaurant Ban Vat Sene is located across the street from the Luang Prabang School and La Salle Francophone. We had passed it walking around Sisavavong Rd. many times but had not yet had a chance to try their food. So, this morning, Amber and I each ordered one of the two different types of pain perdu they offered - pain perdu a la vanille and pain perdu aux deux compotes (mulberry and pineapple). The vanilla pain perdu came lightly dusted with raw sugar while the other was drizzled with a sweet, slightly tangy compote with chunks of papaya, pineapple and mulberry. The bread was so soft and absolutely melted on the tongue - the consistency more like bread pudding than French toast. After she took the first bite into her mouth, Amber looked up at me with wide eyes and said, "I'm in heaven. It's like I'm an angel. I'm an angel and I'm eating clouds". It was love at first bite. Nous etions perdu dans nos pains perdus.
After another unforgettable breakfast, we were grateful we had woken up early. It was only 9:30 am so we had tons of time to figure out what we wanted to do for the day. I dropped off my dirty laundry at a place nearby that charges 10,000 kip per kilo and gets it back to you in four hours. I think the Korean laundromats in the states need to take a cue from their Lao counterparts. Then we organised a tuk tuk to take us to the Thad Sae waterfalls. 
This morning, once again, we woke up ultra early tosee the procession of monks make their alms collecting rounds throughout the heart of LP. This time, we made it - literally jumping out of bed, into proper clothes, and out the door. Just down the street, we could make out a line of orange robes stretching down the street - each monk only stopping briefly to allow alms-givers to place their offering in the monk's bowl. Many LP citizens were sitting on the sidewalk to give their daily offering - heads bowed and generous hands outstretched with bags of curries, sticky rice and sweets. There was another kind of people present in the morning ritual that ruined the serenity - tourist photogs clicking away, trying to capture this component of Lao culture. More on this later, I think this entry is getting quite long enough. The alms rounds only took about ten minutes (much shorter than last time I was here - which took about 40 minutes) so, I sat in the early bird Cafe des Arts with a delicious cappucino in hand - wondering where to get my next croissant fix.