Jenny\'s Southeast Asia/China Adventure

Thursday, 3/4/04
Day 30, Lovely Day

I woke up today to tell Vatcsuchinda that I was feeling a bit ill and could not go with him to his village afterall. I felt bad telling him my white lie, but when I saw that he was sorta nervous talking to me in public I knew that I had made the right decision. After sleeping some more, I got up and hit the sights of Luang Prabang that I had not yet seen. I strolled through the historic district with its french colonial villas-turned hotels and reached a group of temples - one which had pretty murals made out of sparkly mosaic pieces. I also walked a little by the riverside, but it was really hot so I headed back to the main drag and tried to get a fruit shake to cool down. But, surprise, surprise the power was out again so I settled for some cold water. Then I took a nap because I could.
Got up and decided that for my afternoon agenda I would visit the Red Cross and make a donation of $4 in exchange for an hour massage and use of the herbal sauna. Along the way I stopped at the hospital to see what the heck was wrong with my sea-urchin foot. I had gotten a rash from taking the antibiotics and had been using "Fungisil"-Yes, yummy I know- the phramacist prescribed it to me in Chiang Mai to get rid of my rash-and now part of my foot was blistering into this weird bubble on my big toe and down the side of my foot. Hard to describe, but John had scared me when he said maybe a spider layed its eggs into my toe. Lovely. Anyway, the Lao doctor looked at my gross foot and said that I was suffering from an allergic reaction to the Fungisil and scribbled down some more pills for me to take to cure it. At that time, I decided no more pills , I was going to let nature take care of the healing. Or so I hoped. I was getting really tired of my ongoing foot problems. That daym sea-urchin was really causing me a headache.

Onto the Red Cross-I got an hour's worth of lao oil massage, it was nice-but I stil left with some knots in my shoulder. Nevermind, you can't really complain about a $3 dollar massage can you? The best part was the herbal sauna. Wrapped in a sarong, I entered the wooden sauna and sat next to the Laotian ladies who seemed accustomed to this form of relaxation. I tried my best to sit as long as I can to soak up the mixture of over 20 herbs, but 30 seconds was plenty for me. I went outside for some fresh air and some hot tea. After a few minutes, I was ready for more and ended up repeating the pattern of sweat and tea-drinking for about an hour. At the end, I felt calm and limber and headed back to town for some dinner.

The restaurant that I was looking for no longer offered the all you can eat buffet option so I headed back to town to find something else. Along the way I decided to wander around the market in hopes of finding some cheap food and luck was on my side because I stumbled upon a vegetarian" pile your plate as high as you want" stand with delicious food-all for a mere 50cents. Happy and full, I walked past the night market and could not resist the handicrafts this time. I ended up buying a beautiful duvet cover with matching pillows and some scarves. Yes, very smart to lug around a duvet cover around S.E. Asia, but I don't think I will regret my purchase.