Luang Prabang, Lao

Here is the lobby of the Little Guest House in Chiang Mai. The couple who run it were really nice to us during our stay there. For 20 baht an hour they let us use the internet.
We paid 60 baht to get a ride to the airport. On the way we stopped at this mall, which is much like American malls.
There was a large food court that had open food bought by the bag--including these worms, crabs, and crickets. I bought some pastries and a sweet that I think was made from tapioca covered with coconut.

Then on to the airport. In the upper central window you can barely see Doi Suthep, the monastary we visited the day before.
There was a special waiting area for Buddhist monks and novices.
We rode a small propellor plane to Luang Prabang.
Luckily our reservations went through. We made them on the internet just the day before, at Vanvisa Guest House. We did not receive a confirmation but they had a driver at the airport to pick us up. It made it much easier than having to scramble around changing money and finding a ride and finding a place to stay.

The place is listed as a French style guest house--but then everything here is French style. The town is preserved in a turn of the 20th century style because it is so isolated.
One block down the narrow street is the Mekong River. There are places to eat, people were swimming in the river. It was really beautiful.
The sunset was beautiful. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me. I ran to get it and barely got the last glimmers of it--I could literally see the light and colors disappearing very quickly.
We are at the moment booking flights to Saigon. We fly from Luang Prabang to Hanoi and then to Saigon, getting there at 10:30 PM Saturday night. My mother wants to stop in Hanoi or Hue but I am anxious to get back to Saigon. I will try to get things moving on the adoption when I get back. Hopefully I won't have to renew my fingerprints.