Luang Prabang

After sitting on a slow boat for two days, we were ready to get out and explore Luang Prabang! We settled into our guesthouse and went out to search for some bikes to “hire”. We found a rental place just down the street that charged 20,000 kip ($2) per bike for the day, pretty good deal! Oh and we had to give them one of our passports to hold hostage.

We biked all over the beautiful, French style town, which isn’t very big. All along the river were tons of bars and restaurants that all looked AMAZING! Each place had a very unique and special atmosphere and the menus made our mouths water at first sight. There was no way we could settle on just one place, so we decided to do a mini pub-crawl. We choose to go to three or four different restaurants and got one drink and one appetizer to share - SO DELICIOUS!

After we were nice and full, it was about time to return our bikes so we headed back to the shop. About three blocks away from the bike rental place a girl came ripping around the corner on her motorbike. We both saw each other and did the awkward left right left thing, only getting closer and closer. The problem was…. I might have been on the wrong side of the road…? But we had just left Thailand and I was FINALLY used to people driving on the left side. Sooo we ended up running into each other, which in the end was my fault, I guess. Once I realized we were definitely going to crash I gracefully hopped off my bike as it went down. I was fine, but my bike, not so much. The wheel was now in the shape of a squiggly oval. Apparently I have horrible luck with renting bikes. Oh, did I mention the roads in Luang Prabang are very quiet and not busy at all, Cory and I saw maybe 2 tuk-tuk’s on our whole bike ride. Of course I hit the only moving object one the entire rode…hmmm. Cory carried my mangled bike to a tuk-tuk and threw it in the back so they could drive it the last three blocks we had to go. I knew I would have to pay for the damage, I just wasn’t sure how much it was going to cost. We got to the bike rental and a man who spoke very VERY little English told us the owner would be there in about 15 minutes and we had to wait for him. 15 minutes later – still not there, 30 minutes later – still not there, 2 hours later – FINALLY! At this point I didn’t care how much it was going to cost, we just wanted to get Cory’s passport back. We explained to the owner what happened, expecting him to act like he didn’t understand and rip us off. However he was very nice and more concerned that I was OK. He charged me $200,000 kip, which is about $25, not too bad, but my $2 bike rental had just turned into a $27 bike rental. OH WELL, at least I didn’t end up in the hospital, right? Most people who get in accidents with motorbikes don’t come out of it as well. Hopefully next time we rent bikes I can give it back flawless… third times a charm right?