Having carried out a little research before coming to Laos I knew that there were a number of places to purchase books in Lao language to then take to a school or village. However I was a bit pushed on time due to wanting to cram everything in before leaving Luang Prabang, and Big Brother Mouse, where they publish the books was a little too far across town to get to, so I instead found a bookshop nearby and purchased a few there.

Some of the group wanted to join me for a visit to Ban Xang Hai (nicknamed Jar maker village), where they are famous for making whiskey and rice wine, as well as the school (which I had found out about from the tuk tuk driver). 

Fortunately we located a stationery shop in the Dara market area; where I could have spent a fortune in the market on all sorts of cheap (probably knock off) clothes, bags, shoes, and so much more.

Armed with exercise books, pens, pencils and erasers as well as the books in Lao we headed off to check out the village and its many stalls with hand weaved products in every colour you can imagine. I think everyone else bought an elephant wall hanging/table runner, plus scarves and numerous other souvenirs and gifts. I resisted and only gave in to a silk pashmina, which I hope will come in handy to keep the sun off or when I need to cover up in a temple.

We if course tried the different whiskey's and rice wines on offer as well. excluding those with snakes or insects inside the bottle!

The school was extremely welcoming to us all just traipsing in with our bags of stationary and wanting to meet the children and take photos. It was a very humbling experience, seeing just how different a school here is to those I attended, but still with the same sorts of things on the walls such as the alphabet - although there are 27 consonants and 33 vowels (!) to learn! 

After wards we headed to Ban Xang Khong which is back closer to the town, about 2km out and almost walkable. Here there is a number of shops selling items made from paper and hand weaved silk. The paper crafts were overwhelming with rice, elephant dung and numerous other types of paper used in a variety of colours. I resisted once again and came away with just a card and envelope for my scrapbook, and was even more taken with the pink paper with flowers used form the bag they put it in - some things never change!

There are numerous other things to do whilst visiting Luang Prabang, but with a promise of a stop at the Pak Ou caves tomorrow when we head up the Mekong River by boat, I didn't try to cram anything else in as can always come back, after all there is an airport here!