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Published: February 4th 2007
Luang Prabang: Travel, Elephants and Waterfalls
Flying to Laos
2/2/2007 - Our flight from Chiang Mai didn’t leave till after 3pm so we had a good amount of time to kill. We spent our last day in Chiang Mai sitting around reading. It was a nice change from the running around we had done the previous couple of days.
When the time came we stuffed our stuff and selves into a tuk-tuk and headed off to the airport. Thankfully we gave ourselves almost two hours because Laos Airlines was less than efficient in the check in process. It took us almost an hour to get checked in and through customs. I often wonder how some of these companies continue to exist given their low state of efficiency. The people are all very nice, but they never think of ways to improve their companies at all. It’s annoying to one (me) who spent a couple of years improving efficiency at a fortune 500 company.
The flight was a short and fairly pleasant one despite the small prop plane. “Puddle Jumper” type planes can be really scary to fly in, but this particular flight was completely
uneventful. We landed on the single runway in Luang Prabang in slightly more than an hour.
The airport in Luang Prabang is incredibly small. This is probably the smallest airport I’ve seen in years. There is no gate, only a door to the open tarmac and only one baggage carousel. After paying the $35 dollar fee for a visa, we grabbed our bags and were on the way to our hotel.
The Night Market After checking in we needed to head up the road a bit to get some cash. Unfortunately there are no ATMs in Luang Prabang so we were stuck using a bank/exchange place that took a 3%!s(MISSING)urcharge for the money. We grabbed $500 dollars worth of cash which came out as a gigantic wad of Laotian Kip. $1 US is 9500 Kip which means that our $500 equaled almost 5 million Kip. It was tough carrying that many bills around because even though we had mostly 20,000 kip bills, the stack came out more than 3 inches thick. It completely felt like we were rich even if we weren’t.
We checked out the night market which is on the main
street in Luang Prabang. Each stand is set up on the ground with one light bulb over it about 3 feet off the ground. The sparse lighting gives the market a really cool feel. As far as the eye can see is a stretch of small stands selling all sorts of homemade goods.
We didn’t buy anything simply because we had just arrived in town and our new small packs are too small to carry anything at all. Instead we walked around for about an hour and enjoyed all the cloth goods, paintings, t-shirts and other items. If you ever end up in this part of the world I would definitely recommend this market over others that we have seen in Thailand. It feels much more authentic than the other markets.
After it got completely dark we decided to get dinner. We stopped at the first place we came to and had a delicious meal (fried noodles, pork with ginger and two beers) which ended up costing $4.50. From there we stopped off to book a tour for the next day to ride elephants and see one of the local waterfalls and then decided to head back to
catch some sleep. Since our tour started at 8:30 the next morning we figured that heading to bed early was a good way to go.
Elephants and Mahouts 2/3/2007 Our first stop for the morning was a local elephant camp. The drive was about 45 minutes of teeth jarring back roads. Despite the comfort of the van we were driving in, Kel and I both felt a little shaken (not stirred) by time we arrived at the campsite due to the ruts in the dirt road. My guess is that the rainy season leads to wash outs in the road which create any number of ditches and things that we had to drive through. Pretty much the whole ride was a shake fest.
From the van we had to walk down to the river (part of the Mekong Delta) climb over a fence and take a quick boat ride across to the other side. Then a short walk to the path up the other side of the bank to the elephant camp.
The camp consisted of three elephants with saddle/benches already on their backs, two or three huts that stood 10 feet
of the ground and a couple of Laotian people standing around staring at us as if we were aliens. Despite the fact that we felt a little out of place, Kel was really excited to ride an elephant because she has a thing for alternate travel methods. Once she could check the elephant off the list she could claim at least 12 means of transportation that we had used in only the first quarter of our trip…EXCITING!!
To get on the elephants back one must use the ten foot tall huts. These elephant “on ramps” allowed one to step up to elephant back height and then simply step over to the bench seat. This method of mounting and dismounting the elephant set Kel’s mind at ease as she was more than a little worried about how she was going to climb up to the elephant’s back.
Once on, our mahout (elephant driver) took us off on our 30 minute elephant safari. The mahout sits on the elephan’ts neck and steers with his knees. Each knee rests on the top of the elephants ears, where they connect to the elephant’s head. To turn he simply leans on one particular
side of the elephant’s head which, of course, causes the elephant to move its head, and body, in that particular direction.
The walk was slow but still pretty eventful. The mahout used a very worn path through the jungle and then took us down to the riverside. This trek downhill was a little scary as it was at about a 30 degree angle. The elephant really is one of the first SUVs in history. It took the downhill, and uphill, sections with aplomb and had little difficulty with any variations in path type, be it water, sand, rock or beaten trail. While it was fun I wouldn’t say it was exciting. Elephants are more plodding animals that sprinters. On a horse you can really fly...on an elephant you merely move.
Taat Sae Waterfall We had seen pictures of our next destination and were pretty excited to get a chance to see a cool waterfall. The last time we really saw cool waterfalls was Maui for our honeymoon almost 4 and a half years ago.
The drive to the waterfalls was much shorter and less bumpy. When we arrived at the point where we had
to take a boat, our driver told us he’d be back to pick us up at 4pm. It was 11:00am when he dropped us off. Kel had questions about the amount of time we were given, thinking it was too much, but I told her not to worry as these tours do this stuff all the time.
We headed off in a long tail, flat bottom boat which took us 15 minutes up the river. We got off and walked up a few steps and arrived at what is known as one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the area. Spectacular…sometimes, that is. The waterfalls consist of hundreds of small pools and dropoffs that extend over a quarter of a mile, in the wet season. After November, when things dry up here, the pools slowly decline to their present state which consisted of a quarter mile of dried up pools and few smaller waterfalls. Not so much a roaring waterfall as a very pretty water trickle.
When we arrived there was no one there except a few locals selling food. We started to think we had been duped by our tour company. Thankfully others started showing up at
about 1pm which made us feel a little better about being there.
We spent our fourish hours walking around the area taking pictures and enjoying the peace and quiet. We talked to some travelers from Canada and Australia and got some advice for other destinations for the trip. After a great lunch we took a nap by the waterfalls which was really great. Kel and I both love naps and as naps go this was a pretty nice one.
We headed back a little early and were glad to find a driver waiting for us. We took the 45 minute drive back to camp in a tsong tao with a mother and her daughter (about 2 months old max). She was really cute but surprisingly stoic. Kel’s red hair was of incredible interest to her. The girl spent a large part of the trip staring at Kel like she was a new form of life. It was kinda funny.
Dinner For dinner we took the ten minute walk through town in the dark. Kel was a little tired but glad we walked because it was Saturday night and everyone was out on the town.
Despite the fact that Luang Prabang only has 26,000 people they sure do get out and about for Saturday night. Walking through the local markets it looked like every young person in town, who wasn’t a monk, was out meeting and having fun. It wasn’t all that different from what I would expect to see in a small town in the US.
At dinner, at the Indochina Spirit Restaurant, Kel and I both opted for recommended plates of multiple foods. Kel got the Thai plate and I got the Lao plate. They came out on aluminum trays that looked like oversized TV dinner trays. Kel’s consisted of Coconut Soup, Sweet and Sour Pork, Spring Rolls, Steamed Rice, Fried Shrimp and fruit. Mine consisted of Fish Soup, Fried something (who knows), Spicy Sausage, Fried Seaweed, Thai Salad, Fruit and Sticky Rice. Kel’s definitely tasted better than mine but mine gave us a chance to see the distinct differences between Lao and Thai cooking.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel and went to bed a little early. Having gotten up at 7am that morning we were tired and needed some sleep.
Kel’s Observations: Luang Prabang has
been interesting to me - close to what I imagined with real differences. It’s a very dusty place, feels almost like a Wild West town that got picked up in an Wizard of Oz tornado and dropped in Laos. Motorbikes are everywhere and bicycles too - they only allow tourists to rent bikes, no motorbikes. There are chickens wandering everywhere and roosters crowing all day - they are almost taking over the dogs in sheer numbers. I don’t know who owns them, but they are definitely established residents of LP. The people are friendly and embrace the tourists with no problem. Tourists are everywhere, but it’s mostly the hippie variety with dreadlocks and a lot of batik shirts and headwraps. It’s a neat combo with the Laos people, tourists, dogs and chickens (in that order) all milling about all the time. Full of color and interesting sights =)
Hope you are all doing well. We miss you and have been thinking about you all the time.
These are not all of our pictures but this is taking forever and we are paynig by the minute so, enough for now. More will be posted later, sorry!
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Katie M
non-member comment
Hello
I am catching up on your blog. Your journey through Laos looks amazing. I'll share the pictures of all the animals with Claire. Kel, I feel your pain on the Asian-style toilet. We encountered a few of those during day trips in China - major thigh-buster. You're missing the deep arctic freeze here - Laos is much more tropical.