Day 94 Monk Patrol

06/06/13
My alarm went off at 05.15. I quickly dressed and left Dave to his dreams. I walked towards the centre of town, where I hoped to see the monks processing through the streets, something they do every morning to collect balls of sticky rice from devout locals. Sure enough, just after 05.30 a slow moving column of monks wandered down the street, occasionally stopping so another ball could be added to their begging bowls. On my way back to the hostel I saw another procession, presumably from another monastery. I tried getting back to sleep but gave it up as a bad job and just listened to music. I got out of bed at 07.00 when my second alarm went off and after showering quickly and packing I slipped out into the morning light once again. I picked up a tuktuk which took me to the out of town bus station where I paid for a ticket to Sam Neua ($5 cheaper than if I booked through a tour company). I had an hour to wait so I got chatting to the only other foreigner in the place, an Aussi who had just split from his travelling partner and was heading north to a town called Udomaxai (Muang Xai). I envied him as his journey was considerably shorter than mine. From Luang Prabang to Sam Neua it was 512km and it took us from) 8.30 to 21.20. This did however include a number of toilet stops, a half hour stop for lunch/dinner at 16.00 and an hour stop at a police checkpoint where 3 passengers had their luggage searched and parts of the bus itself was searched. I don't know what they were looking for but they didn't find it and when I asked one of the officers who spoke English I didn't get an answer. When we arrived it was dark, nothing at the bus station was open and there were no tuktuks so I had to walk over a kilometer into town. By the time I reached my room (on the 3rd floor) I was exhausted and dropped off to sleep straight away.