11 days???

I just glanced at my Countdown Clock on my blog, and it seems I am actually returning to Canada in 11 days. That's wild! And for once, I don't have a thousand and one boxes still left to pack (because I did that all in July when I left Japan - fun, fun).

We are still in Luang Prabang, and struck with indecision. Luang Prabang is very pretty and very nice - there are some wonderful temples and some tasty food - but there's not really much left for us to do here. We've visited most of the temples and we've eaten lots of the food. However, we're feeling unmotivated to move on. See, Luang Prabang is cheap. There's cheap good food, and cheap good handicrafts at the market, and our guesthouse room has satellite TV with HBO movies every night and... god, I'm a terrible traveler.

Anyway, all good things must come to an end, and we're going to leave Luang Prabang tomorrow. Or, well, maybe the day after. On Tuesday, there is an air-con bus going northeast to Phonsavan, which is the town near the mysterious Plain of Jars (on Monday, there is just a regular local bus). It takes about 8 hours to get there, or possibly more at this time of year (rainy season). We'll head up there for just two nights, so one full day to visit the Plain of Jars. That takes us to Wednesday or Thursday (depending on when we leave here), and then we plan on flying down to Vientiane, the Laos capital. Cheap flights. 4-5 days in Vientiane, then either fly to Bangkok on the 26th or 27th, or take an overnight train there, with 1-2 days in Bangkok before we fly home to, first, Nagoya (on the 29th), and then Toronto on the 30th. Wow. Crazy.