May 27 – Day 9 – The morning of the homestay is a complete waste of time. Since you get woken up at the crack of dawn with the roosters and then the island is so noisy, you have no hope of sleeping in. Everyone just sits around and waits for the ferry. My roomie and I watched a movie on my phone. This whole day is a complete waste of time.
Finally, at 9:30am we boarded the boat back to the mainland. We then went to a market that was both indoors and out, but it was more of a local market with day-to-day clothes and food and lots of fancy jewelry. We didn’t buy anything and ate ice cream instead. Next we had lunch at a place with AC, Wifi and a Western bathroom. The food was okay – not great. There was a mall down the block so we went there to kill time. It was nothing exciting either – it mostly had stuff for locals. There was a supermarket there too so that at least that was interesting.
There was also a cage on the street with animals in it. It was really sad.
From there we went to the airport for our flight to Luang Prabang. The airport is small but efficient. Once through the security area it has air conditioning. The plane was small but nice. They even feed you on the 1.5 hour flight – a fish stick in a bun with brownie and fruit. Upon landing we went to our hotel which was pretty nice – although anything would have felt nice after having a rat invade your bedroom! But really, I think this was the only room I took pictures of because I was so impressed. It was within walking distance to restaurants and the night market.
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Right after check-in, we went for dinner at an Australian pub. The food there was good and the atmosphere was fun. Afterwards, we went to the night market, but I wasn’t feeling well, so I sat on the floor and didn’t shop.
At least I got to sleep in a nice room that night!
Aimee Knows 