A Week in Luang Prabang

Swimming area at the waterfall
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So our first day in Luang Prabang and we liked it, the French influence is so much more apparent here, especially when there are baguette stands everywhere and coffee shops and bakeries selling cakes and croissants. There is a weird mix of people here, there are backpackers like ourselves, and then there seems to be holidaymakers, which is really strange to see and we are not really sure where they have come from! Our first morning we took a stroll round the place and went for breakfast in a famous backpacker hangout called L'etranger. This is a really lovely laid back bookshop, where you can rent, buy and swop books downstairs or take your book upstairs where there are really low tables and tons of cushions for you to lounge around on while drinking fruitshakes/ice coffees and ordering food. Luang Prabang is also famous for its textiles so that night we headed to the local night market with Cecillia and Dominik and took advantage of the market food (fill your plate for 50 cents) before seeing what treats we could buy from the rest of the market. There is basically every type of scarf you could imagine here, along with cushion covers, bedspreads, bags, jewelry & T shirts. The market is on every night so there was plenty of time for us to treat ourselves!

View from the top of the waterfall
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The next day we got up at 5.30am to meet Cecillia, Dominik and this Dutch girl called Margherita so we could hire a Tuk Tuk to the Kuang Si Waterfall which is 30km outside the town. We wanted to be there in time for sunrise. While waiting for the TukTuk we saw all the monks lining the streets collecting their morning Alms. This really is a sight to see as hundreds of Monks walk the streets going from one stand/person to another collecting a daily donation of food. We arrived at the Waterfall and although we were told it was beautiful, nothing could prepare us for actually seeing it ourselves. It is almost like somebody has built the perfect waterfall (imagine the Bounty adverts!) It was great to get there so early and have the place to ourselves to explore before all the tourists arrive around 11ish. We went swimming in the pools at the bottom of the waterfall and we were having a great laugh until we were told that there was a water snake swimming at the other end of the pool - neither of us have swam so fast before! We thought it was fitting that we spend Valentines day together in one of the most romantic spots around - under a beautiful cascading waterfall! In the Park there is a Tiger that was saved from poachers about 5 years ago, she is called Phet and the woman who runs the food stand feeds her everyday. She told us to come back at 11am so that we could watch her being fed - the closest we have ever been to a Tiger. We got back to Luang Prabang around 4pm, had a shower and headed back out for dinner with the girls to celebrate Valentines Day and the 1 year anniversary of Cecillia hitting the road. We intended on staying out for a few drinks but decided to call it a day after 2 when we were all starting to fall asleep at around 10pm!

Phet the Tiger
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On the Wednesday we treated ourselves to a traditional Laos Massage - it was amazing! We went to the local Red Cross for it and discovered that a Laos massage is a mix between Thai & Swedish, we felt like we were floating down the road afterwards! That afternoon we had arranged to go for a traditional Laos meal - we had previously gone for an Ice Coffee in this lovely little place called Tamarind which is opposite one of the Vat's (Temples).It is run by an Australian woman called Caroline and her partner. We got chatting about food (there's a surprise!) and she told us that she wants to introduce real Laos food to Western people - not the simplified Laos food that Lao people think we want to eat. The 4 of us had steamed fish stuffed with herbs and lemongrass wrapped in Banana Leaves and served with a selection of green leaves, fresh veggies, noodles, chilli sauce and peanuts. The idea is basically to make a wrap using the green leaves (lettuce leaf, beetle nut leaf etc) and filling it with fish, veggies, noodles, chillies and sauce etc. Its quite a messy meal but it was just delicious. We finished of with purple sticky rice and tamarind sauce just as the sun was setting. Yummy. Dominik finished his beer and then headed to catch the bus to Vientiane - we lost another one of our group.

The next day us, Cecillia & a Finnish girl called Joanna headed off on a 1 day elephant ride and kayaking down the Nam Khan. The elephants were just gorgeous, so big and cute. Our Mahout was the maddest, and we nicknamed him "Disco dancer". He told us that he had already had a few Lao Lao's that morning and a Beer Lao - and had given the elephant a beer! After trekking on the elephant for 1.5 hours we were dropped off to the Kayaks. We did a 14 Km kayak down the river all the way back to Luang Prabang. It was tough on the arms, and exciting going through the rapids but also relaxing at times. As the sun was so strong we all got quite badly sunburnt even though we were caked in sun screen. Lou is now sporting a lovely "X"shape on her back from her straps. After working so hard all afternoon we decided that cheese and wine were on the agenda - quite a treat as both are very expensive to buy over here. Real chedder, feta, baguettes, crackers were all washed down with a few bottles of French Wine - Tres Bien!

Cecillia headed off the next morning and we had the day to ourselves - for the first time in nearly 2 weeks! Not for long though as later that afternoon we bumped into Akhim and Jean-Louis. The two of us bought some Papya salad and baguettes from the market, headed up this hill called Phousi HIll which has a great old Temple on it and a lovely view of the city, at the top we settled down with our food and water and watched sunset. We met up with Jean-Louis later that night in the local trendy bar called ""Hive" which is associated to Létranger. Many Lao Laos later a good night was had by all. The many drinks did however stop our plans to get up early for sunrise on Phousi Hill. But im sure we will have many more chances to see more sunrises over the coming months.