I walked to the bus station in the early morning, got some sticky rice and 3 pork sticks from one of the "mobile" food stalls and jumped on a bus up to Nong Khai, a small relaxed town next to the Lao border. I crossed the border the next day and made it to the capital of Laos-the Land of a Million Elephants: Vientiane. Tried to relax with the obligatory beerlao after a lot of traveling lately ( what a stupid comment) and did some sightseeing, of course, cycled to the huge golden holy stupa - the most famous landmark of Laos, walked across the morning market and saw more temples ( unbelievable that I can still manage to look at more temples). I took a bus to Luang Prabang, passing small huts made of wood and bamboo at the hillsides next to the winding road. Luang Prabang is an amazing place: a pretty small town nestled between mountains and almost surounded by rivers - lots of golden temples and french colonial architecture using a lot of wood which gives this place a special flair. Althrough loved by tourists, this town seems to maintain a laid-back atmosphere where time seems to tick away very slowly. You just float through the small streets of the town, passing dozens of temples with hundreds of monks and a street market where Hmong people sell beautifully woven and embroidered blankets and clothing. I went to the elefant park project to do some elefant riding and kajaked down a river later on, which was very relaxing: just take in the beautiful landscape, paddling around some water buffallos which looked at us with big eyes and somehow managed to keep their heads above waterlevel while chewing in slow-motion....some kids playing in the shallow water while we made our way through some little rapids. At 5am today only a small strip of light suggested where the sun would rise later on, I started to walk towards the centre of town through empty streets, the town still seemed to sleep, I sat down at the riverside and watched the first locals open their foodstalls, a few minutes later a long row of monks in saffron robes slowly passed by to collect the morning alms ( rice contributed from kneeling women), I walked a few streets and found the street market, where locals were about to sell all kind of food: fresh vegetables like sweet potato, pumkin, chilli, cucumber and herbs; fruits like rambutan and loads of mandarines, fresh meat - even living frogs, tied with one leg to a bamboo stick. Later I saw some more monks hurry down the streets, about to finish the collection of the morning alms, at 6 sharp loads of tourists with their cameras seemed to pop up at the corners of the streets to get a good shot of them. I went to a waterfall in the afternoon, several pools with cristal clear water to swim in, and not to many people there as it was a little overcast today. Gonna leave this lovely place tomorrow to head further north.