Last Day in Luang Prabang

It's my first day at Ernst and Young. I wake up at 8:45AM, leaving me only 15 minutes to get to work. I open my wardrobe hastily to put on my suit, but I can't find a jacket and trousers that match. With no time, I put on the uncoordinated attire. The jacket is also too big, but it will have to do. I need to find a tube station. I'm running round frantically, all flustered, and I don't know where one is, so I run into a shop and ask. When I finally find one, it turns out there are major problems on the line - they've moved the trains overground. When I get to one, it's very busy. Just as I begin to look for a seat, I realise I've forgotten my bag, which I need for work. I have to get off the train and as I walk along the side of it, I'm finding 50p coins - people must have dropped them whilst waiting for the train. I'm so late. 

When I get back to the flat to get my bag, someone is there who I know, who has been working for Ernst and Young already for some time. He has lots of yellow envelopes. I explain to him about my situation, but there's nothing he can do for me. Now past midday, there's no point in going to work.

That's when I wake up. Rachelle and I have both been having very vivid dreams; a symptom of the malaria pills. They are very rarely positive, although Rachelle did have one about running around a shopping mall with Kevin Spacey. Neither of us like them.

It's boiling hot and uncomfortably so. I can't be sure if the past two days were equally hot because we had the waterfalls to cool down in, but today we're staying in the city so there will be no cooling down. It's our last day in Luang Prabang, therefore, we see it fit to have the American Breakfast again. Then we move to a cafe and have drinks, whilst we wait for the museum to open at 1.30PM. It costs 20,000 Kip entry and after we're in they tell us Rachelle has to wear a long skirt. She's not wearing one, which means she has to rent one for 2,000 Kip. How sneaky of them.

The museum is an old palace that the Kings of Lao lived in over time. To me it just looks like a big house. Inside are mainly cabinets of small Buddha statues (as if we haven't seen enough of those) some bed-sofa things and metal drums. I'm not too impressed. It doesn't look like the king had very much. Other cabinets have gifts from other countries in them. China gave swords, Australia gave a boomerang and America arrogantly gave a small model of the space pod used to land on the moon. I see this as almost insulting, because Lao certainly can't afford a space program. Anyway, the museum wasn't worth any Kip in my opinion.

We spent the rest of the day moving around cafes, feeling too hot to do much else. In the evening we meet Charlotte and Jan for food at Utopia. After we've eaten, the Australian couple who were in the Stray Bus group, but left us at the border, walk in with a large group of other Stray Travelers. They've all arrived today and some are leaving tomorrow morning with us, so we sit with them. Utopia has a volley ball pitch, which I've been itching to use, but never had a group large enough to play with. After coming back from the toilet they're all playing, so I join them, whilst Rachelle chats to Charlotte and Jan. I played okay for a short person.