luang prabang, laos

I am kidding about Mount Crumpet- that’s from a Dr. Seuss book. This was taken in Luang Prabang. I remember lots of steps and being very thirsty at the top, but for the life of me I can not remember the name of the “mountain”! Great views!

This one is not one of the biggest, but it is still quite impressive. Some spiders have regular looking webs with heavy white stitching close to the center. It feels sticky and strong.
The huntsman spider is the biggest by legspan. Unless you are a spelunker – don’t worry about coming across many because they prefer to live in caves.

Grammy- you would FREAK! Love!

Em wanted to hang a little birdcage (it had the two birds that she released at the top of a small mountain.) She hung it in the hopes that a bird could use it to make a fancy nest!

Americans used Laos as a gateway into Vietnam. The US claimed it was on the border so technically was Vietnam but it was not. Laos didn’t want to be involved and did not give permission to the US but they set up shop anyways. There are still some remnants (odd how they are right next to a Buddhist temple.)

While visiting one of the temples, we saw a table with a display of little statues and painted canvases for sale. To the right of the art was a price list, a book to record what you bought and a bowl to put the money in. We bought the small canvas that Em is holding in the photo. A sign said that any money collected would be used to re-paint the inside of the temple. The bowl was full of money! I love how trusting these people are, but I can imagine if you did take anything- you’d probably get some pretty bad karma coming your way if you steal from monks!

Here is us walking to a little portal. Signs all around say that it’s Buddha’s footprint inside- he must have been a huge dude because the size of the foot is about as tall as Emerson. I don’t want to be a negative Nelly- so you’ll have to travel here and judge for yourself whether or not you think it’s the real deal. We all had our doubts.

When we walked down into this one- it scared the heck out of us. The guy in front looked pretty real and there was fake blood on his cheeks. I thought we walked right into one of those hidden camera shows and he was going to jump at us any second. Freaky!

The kids usually humor me when I try to direct them in the photos!

At the base of the steps- a woman was selling tiny birds in little wicker cages. You take them all the way to the top and let them go while making a wish. We bought a cage with two little birds and released them at the summit. 🙂 They thanked us by flying around over our heads for awhile. So cool.