Luang Prabang - what a beautiful city!!

---

Luang Prabang is a World Heritage Site and you can see why - it has to be one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen!! I remember it being nice last time I was here, but Nat got sick last time, so I didn't really see much of the place or the surrounding countryside. I've only been here two days, but I can really imagine living here. The people here seem really happy and chilled out (as they do in most of Laos!!), but it also feels like a very spiritual place, with wats on every corner and monks wandering around in brightly coloured robes. This morning I got up really early, about 5.30am and walked around the town and watched the monks Morning Alms - this is when they collect food from the local's and tourists. Its a really colourful sight as it's still a bit dark that time of day and it seems as though there are hundreds of them so their bright orange robes really stand out!! It looks really dramatic!!

In Luang Prabang you can really tell that Laos used to be a French colony as there are bakery's everywhere and lots of street stalls selling the best chicken bagettes ever for only $1!!! I'm currently addicted to a street stall selling ham and chedder cheese crepes, they are so gorgeous!! You don't realise how much you will miss cheese until you come to Asia - all you can usually get here is plastic looking cheese with no flavour.

So far while we've been here we've done we've spent the daytimes doing a bit of exploring, then in the evenings we've been meeting up with the people we met on the slow boat, which has been really nice. Most of them are all going to Vang Vieng next as well, so looks like we'll have friends there too!! Luang Prabang is quite a small city - about a mile square, so its really easy to explore. There is a big hill in the centre of the city called Phu Si Hill which me and Kim walked up yesterday. When we reached the top there were spectacular views all around - you could literally walk around and get a 360 degree view of Luang Prabang. You don't realise just what a green and mountainous place it is here until you see that view. It is truly stunning!! I only hope my photos do the place justice!!

Today we went a bit out of town to visit some waterfalls called Kuang Si Waterfalls and they were amazing!! I think they may even be better than Erawan Waterfalls (the waterfalls we saw in Kanchanaburi, Thailand). The water was just such a torquoise colour and it was really easy to swim in the lower waterfalls - people were jumping from the top of the waterfall into the pool and they even had a rope swing. The top waterfall was the best though, it was quite a high waterfall and the power from it seemed intense - there was so much mist coming from it that I struggled to take a photo of it without getting my camera wet. It was the biggest waterfall we've seen so far on the trip.

Tomorrow we're heading off to Vang Vieng and I feel really sad to be leaving, I think I'll leave a piece of my heart here. I really hope that I get a chance to come back here one day with Nat as he's never really had the chance to see it as he was too ill last time to see anything!!

---