Roughing it in Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang main road
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If calloused toes, blistered fingers, sunburnt shoulders, smelly clothes and dirty bodies mean you've had a good adventure, then we had a GREAT one.

What we'll always remember:

• The chilled atmosphere in Luang Prabang and the great travellers we met
• The ambience created by the lights of the night market
• Sleeping outdoors where the sounds of nature are louder than being in a big city

Forgettable:

Outside Royal Palace
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• Once again getting taken for a ride by someone trying to make money off tourists - the guy who sold us our 3 day adventure trip fed us the biggest load of #$%& and then blamed it on his imaginary work colleague when we went back a second time

Details

Luang Prabang is a great little city. It's small, quaint, has loads of character and is testament to the fact that many travellers we spoke to struggled to find accommodation when arriving as everything was fully booked. We spent our first evening there (day 45) strolling around the night market with nobody hounding us to buy their wares. The people here are generally very welcoming.

Massage time
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The next day (day 46) we spent in the city and managed to visit a few Wat's (temples), one of which is on a hill and has a great view of the city. We followed this up with a full body massage each and went for dinner feeling rather relaxed. We had dinner at a buffet style market stall and met some great people in the process. Shawn and I are so embarrassed to tell people we are only touring for 2 and a half months. Everyone we chat to seems to be on the road for anything up to a year.

12km cycle
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Day 47-49

We were picked up from our guesthouse and taken to "choose" (get given) our bikes for our "20km" (turned out to be 12km) cycle. It was pleasant enough but Shawn would have preferred something a bit tougher - although one pretty big hill at the end seemed to semi-satisfy him. We then got taken to a gorgeous waterfall with turquoise ponds for a refreshing swim and were served lunch. All refreshed we started our hour long elephant ride. We felt sorry for the poor buggers but were promised that the money we paid for it would go straight to their upkeep - we also saw firsthand that the elephants are returned to the jungle at night albeit restricted by their long chains.

Waterfall with turquoise ponds, colder than it looks
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The afternoon was pretty relaxing and we visited a small nearby village to fill our time. After dinner we made our way back to the elephant camp where we spent the night. Our "accommodation" was a bamboo platform with a banana leaf roof and thank goodness also included a mosquito net. We haven't seen that many stars in a very long time, and us and the thousands of frogs, birds and insects all seemed to enjoy it. Shawn and I were both convinced it rained the entire night only to find out it was just the leaves rustling from all the nightlife.

End of Elephant ride
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The whole of the next day was spent hiking and we covered 28km's, part jungle, part rice fields, part mountains. It was hot but very enjoyable with great views. We didn't pass a westerner all day but went through numerous small villages where the children were always happy to see us. Feeling pretty hot and sweaty we arrived at our overnight accommodation to find that the village shower was an outdoor tap. No problem to us though, we washed our arms and legs, stuck a cap on and were good to go for another day. That night we had dinner by candlelight as the village has no electricity (the beers are kept cool in the troughs of water used to manually flush the new toilets installed just for tourists). Later we swapped riddles with the tour guides over a few laughs before turning in for the night in a villages home.

First evening accomodation
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We were woken up numerous times in the night by puppies yelping, roosters crowing, pigs snorting and goats doing whatever goats do.

The next day we spent kayaking on the Nam Khan river. The largest rapid was probably a 2 but it was good fun avoiding rocks and our guide who kept crossing our path.

At this stage we hadn't showered in 3 days and had chosen to stay in the same clothes the entire time so as not to ruin more than 1 outfit - yip, it was pretty ugly.

When we arrived back at the guesthouse we didn't waste time jumping in the shower and then proceeded to hand wash our filthy clothes (thanks Tash for the travel wash, it has come in very handy, and Rochelle for the washing line, also couldn't have done without it).

Views on our trek
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We're slightly embarrassed to admit it but we had a burger and pizza for dinner that night.