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| Luang Prabang |
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| Monks at dawn collecting their alms |
We made plans to meet up with them at a bar later that night and continued on our search for accommodation. A few hours later we caught up with them at the bar and met two friends of theirs, Rhian and Cassandra. We had a few drinks, traded some stories and agreed to meet up the next day.
The main street in Luang Prabang is filled with tuk-tuk drivers. Every time you walk past a driver they'll ask in one short breath: "tuk-tuk waterfall?". Every single driver, all the way down the road, "Tuk-tuk waterfall?". When late afternoon rolls around, they change their strategy, "tuk-tuk airport tomorrow?". Finally evening comes with one last proposition "Tuk-tuk bowling?". Luang Prabang tuk-tuk's: they've got all your bases covered.
The group of us met up the next day at a coffee shop and decided to make a tuk-tuk drivers day when we finally accepted his offer of "tuk-tuk waterfall?". Jade and Brock haggled the price down and we set off for Kuang Si Falls. At the entrance to the park we had lunch then checked out a Bear Rescue Sanctuary which houses Asian sun bears rescued from poachers. We watched them climb, play, but mostly just snooze before heading up the valley to the waterfall.
Beautiful blue clear water cascaded down the hillside, splashing onto little terraces and pools. It was beautiful and probably the nicest waterfall we've seen. One of the lower pools had a rope swing and was deep enough to swim in, but we kept going to the bottom of the main waterfall. There we watched as it plunged down off the hill above us, into a small lake, sparkling in the sunlight, with butterflies darting all around us. We decided we wanted to walk to the top and after a steep, sweaty twenty minute climb through the humid forest, we made it up but couldn't see the waterfall. Oh well. We took a few group photos then carefully walked back down the muddy track and followed the creek back down the valley. Hot and sweaty from our walk, we stopped at the swimming hole which was crowded with people. We striped off and tested out the water in the lower pool - freezing, and then it started raining heavily. The crowds disappeared and we were left alone, so we covered our bags and dived in (you gotta do these things right?). After playing on the rope swing, almost getting frost bite and having our toes nipped at by freshwater crabs we headed back to our patiently waiting tuk-tuk driver to take us back home.
We went to grab some lunch the next day at a small restaurant Sarah and Brok said made good Tom Yum soup. We were handed a menu of four dishes, all written in broken English. My eyes landed on "Length with pork and retreat". What? Now, I'm rather partial to pork noodle soups so we asked the Laos woman what this dish was. Her English was limited, but she bought over some noodles. Ahh, 'length' was noodles. "Retreat?" we asked next. "Same, same" she replied. With a shrug I ordered it. She set my bowl of steaming hot length with pork and retreat in front of me and I realised 'retreat' wasn't 'same, same' as noodles. It wasn't same same at all: it was jellied pork-blood. Yummy! I took a couple of tentative sips before Jade took pity on me and swapped his soup with mine.
We were getting on really well with Rhian and Cassandra so after Sarah and Brock left we decided to hang out for the day and take a trip to a silk craft workshop. We got a tuk-tuk there and were given a free tour of the whole silk weaving process - how it's produced, harvested and dyed, before being shown around some of the silk looms as local woman weaved. We finished off at the shop, then had tea at the on site cafe overlooking the Mekong.
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| Silk worm cocoons |
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| Naturally dyed silk |
At night, one of the little alleyways in town is transformed into vegetarian buffet central - a vegetarians dream! For 10,000 kip ($1.50) you pile your plate with the many different salads, veggies, fruits and fried fritters that each stall has on offer (you have to pay more if you want meat though). Perhaps not a place I would have chosen on my own: a buffet that sat out in the open, with no coverings and no locals ate there. But we were with a group who all wanted to go and had been the previous nights had been fine, so we followed the crowd.
We're not entirely sure whether it was the vegetarian buffet, the Indian we'd eaten for lunch or just a random tummy bug but the next day Rhian and I weren't feeling the best. It wasn't until that night that things really took a turn for the worst though and we were up all night. The next day didn't pan out particularly any better and both of us spent the entire day in bed while the rest went off on a bike ride. We both finally made it out of bed the following day and stumbled down the road to the blissfully cool air conditioned coffee shop, where we sat until the evening. Rhian and Cassandra had to leave the following day and we were also planning on leaving too but with what everyone had described as the worst bus trip in the world to Vang Vieng in front of us, I really did not feel up to going anywhere.
We ended up having to stay an extra 3 days in Luang Prabang as I recovered from my bout of sickness, spending most of our time at the coffee shop. Eventually I recovered enough for us to leave, so we purchased tickets for a minivan to Vang Vieng from our guesthouse. The next morning we were picked up and driven 15 minutes through the city, only to be dumped at the bus station and handed "VIP" bus tickets. Customer service, Laos style. We sat in the open-air bus station watching carpenters violate every non-existent health and safety code replacing a snapped column holding up the station roof. Eventually our "VIP" bus was ready and we were off to Vang Vieng, probably the most infamous small town in Southeast Asia.
Boy were we in for a shock.
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