"Voted Most Beautiful City in 2007 by Wanderlust"

River life..
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We arrived in Laos on Friday morning and checked through customs successfully before boarding our slow boat down the Mekong. We were already aware that the boat would be just as it says..."rather slow" with around 7 hrs a day for two days meandering down the river, but that was no problem for us thanks to the beautiful scenery and time out for reading and diary writing along the way. Also after the craziness of city life in Japan! Our first stop was in the small town of Pak Beng where we would spend our first night before heading back down the Mekong the following day to get to Luang Prabang. Pak Beng was a very small and local town with very few amenities (the town generator didn't come on until 6.30pm at night for electricity) but was great to have a look around and see rural life in Laos. We took a walk up to the market and certainly had our senses heightened. You could buy vegetables, herbs, fresh meat (albeit rather covered in flies), dried whole guinea pig (see photos), dried monkey and even sun-dried igunana with feet still intact! Our guide told us that people in Laos do eat anything except humans and chairs! Really interesting to see. We also wandered through the village and received lots of "Saba-dii" welcomes from the kids in particular. The children here are so sweet and inquisitive about foreigners or "Falang"...the people with big noses is the literal translation. Meant in kindness apparently! For the evening we had a meal at a local restaurant over-looking the river which was very serene and peaceful.

.....more river life
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Following day we headed back down the Mekong on our boat (rather private with just 7 of us onboard) and visited the sacred Pak Ou caves on the way. These caves have over 4,000 Buddha images inside them and have been placed there over hundreds of years. Apparently, as the Mekong was the main transport route to and from China, Thailand and Laos in years gone by, then people travelling down the Mekong would stop off at the caves and either pray or leave Buddhas for good luck.

Once in Luang Prabang we tackled the problem of getting off the boat onto a steep muddy incline/bank with backpacks on our backs and got into our tuk tuk to take us to the hotel. Dinner was fantastic - due to Laos's connections with France in the past they still have alot of French influences and we ate a gorgeous restaurant called L'Elephant with beautiful french food and cocktails!!! Although slightly pricier than Laotian food it was great to just had a normal meal - we hadn't eaten Western food since Australia and so this was much needed.

Pak Beng market...bartering for fruit
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Yesterday we had a busy morning visiting local villages, the Palace temple and the oldest temple in Luang Prabang. The temples were ornate and as beautiful as ever and we totted up more Buddha viewings! The Royal Palace (not in use since 1975 when the people voted to lose the monarcy) was particulalry ornate and very interesting to look around. In the local villages we saw the locals weaving on the loom and stopped to purchase some handmade silk scarves and table runners for about $5 each and have friendly banter and bartering with the ladies. The local boys were busy outside with bags on sticks in the air catching something and we innocently thought that they might be catching butterflies, as you do when you are young, to look at. However, no, another Laotian delicacy is cicada and you should have heard those cicadas scream when they rather stupidly flew into the bags and realised that they were about to be BBQ cicada! We also saw handmade paper making. The afternoon was free time so we made the most of it and went off for a Laos massage - around $3 for an hour - pure bliss. I then had the biggest bargain so far - a manicure for $1 and there was no phaffing around - two ladies worked on my hands for about 8 minutes and they scrubbed up well! More market shopping to be done after dinner with my only other female counterpart on the trip and the boys...you guessed it...went and had a beer! Nick was only slightly upset that none of the others are real "sporties" and don't follow football or any sport for that matter - he had hoped to catch the England friendly!

Sundried iguana...they eat anything...
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Today we had a lovely day. A leisurely wake up and then off to visit the Kuang Xi waterfalls just outside of Luang Prabang. These falls are probably the best we have seen yet on our 6 month tour and had multiple levels. At each level there were pools and so you could pop in for a dip and stick your head under the waterfall. As our accommodation has been without pools so far and the heat is crazy here, then we quite happily spent the afternoon exploring the pools and the boys especially enjoyed the rope swing which they could jump off into one of the lower pools. Tonight we are off for a traditional Laos meal and then possibly on to have another massage - well at $3 the hour, how could you say no!

Sundried guinea pig - we weren't keen to try this one!
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Tomorrow we fly to Vientiane which is the capital of Laos to spend 2 days there.