After lunch Nuna and I walked over to the Royal Palace to buy tickets for the ballet show that evening. This beautifully coloured wat is on the grounds of the Royal Palace, and this is it at around 15:00:
And then again at sunset:
The ballet is in another building on the palace grounds. The ground floor displays some of the instruments used by the ballet orchestra:
Upstairs in the performance hall, the orchestra just sat cross-legged on the stage to the right of the performers.
I felt like the presentation of the ballet was an interesting reflection of Laos's political and economic realities. The building we were in was no doubt a very impressive building in the mid-20th century when it was built for royal receptions, but now, in 2018, it seemed tired, poorly maintained, and perhaps the victim of communist neglect, despite touches of beauty, such as this alcove:
The show itself lacked polish, but it was still fun, and the costumes were incredible.
Many of the performers were quite young, which was nice to see, and there was even a very little boy who was presumably the son of one of the musicians who was often on stage watching the show amongst the orchestra! He was remarkably well-behaved.
Later that night some of us from the boat got together again, including our guide, Xay Phon, and his girlfriend. He brought out some lao lao "with local herbs" that had been steeping in an old water bottle, and we shared it Lao style in a glass we "borrowed" from the bar we were at. Xay Phon translated some Lao phrase as something like "you cannot only drink once because you have two legs," but then we kept passing the glass, so apparently the phrase does not mean stop at two because you have two legs!
I found a little bottle of lao lao in the grocery store the next day, and it said it was 60% alcohol, so even "mixed" with these local herbs, we were shooting a pretty strong drink!
I passed on breakfast at my hotel yesterday morning, and instead ate it at this food stall.
I took the day fairly easy, doing some writing at various cafes.
This morning I met up with Nuna, the only Nagi passenger left in Luang Prabang, at the morning market, where there were many fascinating things to see, including pink eggs . . .
. . . hand rolled balls of some green herb or leaf vegetable . . .
. . . live crabs . . .
. . . fresh fish, including the biggest catfish I had ever seen (and the one on this picture is not the biggest one I saw) . . .
. . . live turtles . . .
. . . honeycomb . . .
. . . large red mushrooms . . .
. . . and more crabs and some type of little bird.
After the market I went for another outdoor breakfast, this time a mango crepe . . .
. . . and some of this sausage that I have eaten multiple times, because I think it is the most delicious sausage I have ever eaten!
Later Nuna joined me for a last lunch along the Mekong, at a restaurant that apparently Barack Obama visited.
These were my views as we took off out of Luang Prabang.
Now, I am chilling in a very relaxing lounge here at DMK.
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