Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is a small town in northern Laos that reminds us of nothing so much as Taos, New Mexico. It is a bit of a hippie/backpacker place e with 43 Buddhist temples and 1000s of monks. Each AM the monks walk the streets begging for food and the tourist ritual is to buy food to give to them. We did that this morning.  There is a fun cafe culture here too with lots of great crafts. Katy bought a new dress and we died some silk shopping too. Besides a boat trip on the Mekong the other highlights were some great food and a dance concert by the Laotian national ballet.

From here it is back to Hanoi tonight and then homeward bound. A great trip -- totally different from our others,

Siem Reap

Here we are in Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat, and other temples.  I imagine Camboida is a lot like Vietnam was 10 or 15 years ago.  Still just coming out of its slumber.  One of the drivers of change is going to be tourism at Angkor and the other temples.

Today we went biking in the heat (95+) while everyone back home was watching the Super Bowl.  We saw two temples, Te Phom (the famous tree root temple from Laura Craft tomb raider).  They have a great debate going on whether or not they should kill the trees -- they make great photos, but they are very bad in the long  run for the temple).  I personally like the nature v. man theme and would keep the photos in place

We had a great lunch, on a Khmer dish called Amok (kind of a curry dish but drier with more meat and veggies and less rice).  And the Angkor beer is really quite fine.

The other temple we saw was Banyon, named after the Banyan tree under which the Buddha taught.  The entire complex was build by the Khmer king Jamarayam (I know I'm not spelling that right) to commemerate his conversion of the entire country from Hinduism to Buddhism -- hence the name.

Overall, another great day!