Happy Boxing Day! After two days on the Slow Boat cruise, we've made it to Luang Prabang, the largest city in Northern Laos and the former capital of the Kingdom of Laos until 1975.

Luang Prabang is an important centre of Buddhism and a UNESCO World Heritage site. It's a favourite destination on the backpacker and traveller circuit, and I can't wait to uncover its secrets.

We woke up this morning in our luxury hotel in Pak Beng to a beautiful view over the Mekong River. There wasn't really a sunrise, since the day was foggy and overcast. But the mist over the mountains and river valley was beautiful in its own right.

We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel restaurant with a great view. Ryan was gleefully excited to be offered noodle soup as an option. In retrospect, his soup looked much better than my eggs and toast. They might be onto something here in Southeast Asia.

After breakfast, the door-to-door service of Nagi of Mekong continued. Our bags were loaded onto a tuk-tuk and we were chauffeured down to the pier.

The second day on the boat was a lot like the first day: Leisurely, relaxed, not much to do but stretch out and enjoy the scenery. We departed around 8am, while the clouds still hung over the river.  For the first couple of hours, with the wind blowing off the water and the sun still not having broken through the mist, it was actually quite chilly on board. So we all broke out our jackets, and they even handed out blankets. It felt weird to be wearing a packable down jacket in 20-degree weather, but the wind definitely had a bite to it. We all curled up and helped ourselves to the free coffee and tea offered on board.

By late morning, the sun had burned off most of the clouds, and the day started to get a lot warmer. By the time we'd finished lunch -- another excellent meal, this one consisting of rice, stir-fried vegetables, more broth soup, and a vegetarian dish that I believe might have been bamboo shoots -- the sun was high in the sky and I had to take care not to get sunburned.

We'd purchased SIM cards the night before, so we occasionally had a working phone signal, usually while passing through a village or populated area. But for most of the day, it was a repeat of yesterday: Stretch out and read a book, scenery-watch, snap photos, chat, or just relax. Mostly I just relaxed. It felt good to relax.

We had two tourist stops included on today's cruise itinerary. The first were the Pak Ou Caves, about 45 minutes outside Luang Prabang. These are two caves carved out of a mountainside cliff, considered sacred places in Buddhism and filled with hundreds of Buddha statues and carvings from various ages.

There are two caves: A lower cave, accessible easily from the boat pier, and an upper cave, which required a steep climb up more than 200 stairs to reach. Ryan and I kinda accidentally found ourselves on the path to the upper cave, so we shrugged and went there first. It was quite small, but there were some impressive Buddha carvings inside, including what looked like a large reclining one carved right into the caves.

The lower cave was a little bigger, but also far more crowded with tourists; we had to elbow our way onto platforms and around groups of people to see it. The views from inside the cave out onto the river were pretty stunning.

Unfortunately, the Pak Ou Caves felt a little like a tourist trap. I don't mean to be disrespectful; I know this is a religiously significant place in Buddhism. But the groups of boat tourists (of which we were some, I know) all crowded the place, leading to all the negative things that happen when a location gets too touristy: Touts selling trinkets, little kids begging or selling things to tourists instead of being at home or in school, loud tour groups disrespecting the site. I think Pak Ou might need to implement a better system of limiting the number of people who access the caves at the same time in the future.

Our next stop, twenty minutes further downriver, was also touristy but far more interesting: A local village called Ban Xang Hai, which is known for two things: Handicrafts, and the local firewater called LaoLao Whiskey.

The handicrafts were pretty straightforward: This is a weaving and embroidery centre, and the locals make beautiful silk, cotton, and woven scarves and other items and sell them to tourists at market stalls. I've seen a lot of handicraft markets and most of them are selling the same made-in-China stuff. But here in Xang Hai, the local artisans were weaving, spinning, and embroidering the scarves while we watched. Impressive, and the stuff they were selling was actually quite beautiful. I browsed a bit but didn't buy anything, since I didn't really have any need for more scarves.

The other thing that Xang Hai is known for is distilling the local moonshine called LaoLao Whiskey, which, at 50% alcohol, is strong stuff. They had a demonstration showing the process of how they make it from local rice. It's sold in bottles filled with dead snakes and scorpions and such, just to make it seem even less appealing. Despite this, Ryan tried some: He said it was basically just straight ethanol in a glass. I opted out from the LaoLao tasting, but did try some of the rice wine they make that's only around 15% ABV and actually quite nice.

Just after 4:30, we pulled up to the Slow Boat pier outside Luang Prabang. If you've read blog entries about the Slow Boat, you may have heard that there's a scam where foreign passengers are dropped at a random place a few miles outside of town rather than at the pier in the centre of town, in order to compel them to pay a tuk-tuk driver a few dollars to drive into town.

This isn't really a scam, or, if it is one, it's been formalized now because they constructed a pier with steps up to the platform, and added an office where you can buy tuk-tuk tickets. Officially, the reason is that, since Luang Prabang is a UNESCO Heritage site, allowing this many tourists to disembark right in town could be destructive to the riverbank. Unofficially, it may well be to provide local drivers with a source of income. Either way, it seems a bit cad-like to complain about what amounts to a couple of dollars, which is what we would've paid for a tuk-tuk if we'd been on the public boat. Having booked the fancy private cruise, Ryan and I were picked up by an air-conditioned minivan and whisked directly to our hotel.  They even had a porter service to carry our bags. Like I said, the Nagi cruise is definitely the way to travel in style!

We arrived at our guesthouse, a lovely garden oasis a couple of kilometers outside the centre of Luang Prabang, just as the sun was setting. This isn't nearly as fancy as the place we stayed last night in Pak Beng, but it's charming, with private wooden hut rooms surrounding a lovely garden courtyard. Some of the rooms have a view of the river; ours has an interior garden view, but still pretty. We have a private balcony where they'll serve our breakfasts every morning, too.

This place is a bit inconvenient for visiting sights in town, located about a thirty minute walk from the main stretch. But they provide a free shuttle multiple times a day, or we can get a tuk-tuk for pretty cheap. Meanwhile, we were greeted with a welcome drink and cake, and the owners here seem to be bending over backwards to provide hospitality. It's that particular combination that makes me feel a mix of happy and guilty for the trouble that people go to on my behalf.

We were both pretty tired after a long day of doing nothing on the boat, so we opted to stay in tonight and get food at the hotel restaurant. To our surprise, they asked if they could bring it to our room. Sure, we said. So they served us some curry and a chicken dish on our balcony, which we ate looking at the courtyard, swatting away mosquitoes and trying to ignore the horrible karaoke sounds wafting up from the karaoke bars across the river. That's the only problem with waterfront properties: Sound carries.

Aside from their penchant for karaoke, I get the feeling I'm really going to like Luang Prabang. More soon!