A French Town in the Middle of Asia!

Bears
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Getting to our seventh hour on the boat we came up to a town that was distinctly French. The architecture has the flare of French victorian and the town is perched above the river and under beautiful emerald mountains. The reason Luang Prabang has such a distinct French influence is because Laos was a French colony for many years in the early 20th Century. Peter and I loved it! There were more food venders on the street then you could possibly try and it all smelled amazing. We didn't eat a single meal in a restaurant. You could get beautiful prepared bagguet sandwiches (a rarety in Asia) for a dollar, noddles, an omelet, ice coffee, smoothie, or our personal favorite the .50 cent vegi/noodle buffet. The buffet was a little stall on the street with a row of tables down the side of the street, always packed. You would pile as much food as possible onto that little plate and be full for hours! The first night we eat at the buffet I recognized a girl that was setting up her portions. No kidding it was Shoshannah Bramlett from Drew (my high school)!!!!!!!!!! What a small world.

Sus at our fav stand in Luang Prabang
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The next day we spent the day biking the town with Shoshannah, her boyfriend Ruud (from Holland) and two other travelers from England. We spent a large amount of time out on a little dirt street trying to find this paper factory. We didn't find the factory but in stead we found a little village that had a small store. We sat there drinking beers and whatever else they handed us. Between the six of us we had like nine large beers, sodas, pineapple, and some other stuff and ended up only spending $6! We were there for over two hours!

All we found at the top of the falls were signs with "no swimming" and a freaking horrible hike.

Shoshannah and Ruud
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The next day Peter and I made our way to the notorious Luang Prabang Waterfalls, about an hour away. We found a Tuk Tuk and arranged the trip, he would take us out there wait for us and then take us back. Good deal. The waterfalls were beautiful! We walked up the road and found the big falls and it was amazing. We knew that there were swimming holes because thats the reason most people come up here. We figured it must be above the falls so started are trek up. All we found at the top of the falls were signs with "No Swimming" and a freaking horrible hike. Peter and I were both sweating so much it looked as though we had jumped over the falls. We finally found the swimming hole. The swimming area was a series of pools that all just flowed into one another. The water was so cold we finally felt as though we were refreshed. We made are way back down the hill and just kept getting into another pool. Just beautiful.

Day out
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We now head down to Vang Vieng with Shoshannah and Ruud for a ride down the river in tubes. This should be fun.