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Published: March 3rd 2008
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Yesterday we went trekking and kayaking. There was a slight change of plan as someone had died in one of the villages we were going to visit so understandably they did not want to bring a group of tourists there. It worked out well for us as the kayaking was great and we ended up paying less then everyone else as the trekking was cheaper than the combi tour.
We walked for about 3 hours and stopped off at one village before having lunch. Then we got into the kayaks and kayaked down river for about 10Km. The kayaking was great and even thought the water was pretty low and therefore not many rapids it suited me fine. The rapid sections we did were rather on the tricky side and we very nearly capsized! It was great floating down the river seeing people fishing and kids playing. Loads of kids had masks so they could stand in the river with their head in the water waiting for fish to swim by.
By the time we got back to Luang Prabang we were exhausted. Not too tired to go out out for a pre dinner drink though! There are loads
of bars and cafés along the banks of the Mekong. We had the obligatory beer Lao! We even have the T shirts! Although in our defence we should say that they seem to be
de riguer if you are our age and have been to Lao. Things like that are really cheap ($3) so I got one that says
same same on the front and
but different on the back. I know that is really cheesy but it has to be done!
Today we went to the Pak Ou caves which are about 35km out of Luang Prabang. The caves (upper and lower) are famous for the fact that they are filled with over 4,000 Buddha images. It is an important pilgrimage site (I think). We went via tuk tuk which was good but bumpy. When we got back to town we noticed that lots of people were riding their bikes or scooters one handedly. The other hand was being used to hold up an umbrella! I am yet to see a singe person on a motorbike wearing a helmet. Not only that they don't think twice about have very small kids sitting on the back of their bikes
or having a family of four travelling together on one bike. What with the way everyone drives and the huge numbers of stray animals (mostly dogs) you have to wonder that there are not more accidents.
In case you are wondering what kip is, it is the currency here. There are about 9000 of them to the US dollar which make about 16,000 - 17,000 to the pound. There are no coins and the notes are 1,000, 2000, 5000, 10000, 20000 and 50000 so we and everyone else has huge bundles of cash! Expensive things like trips tend to be priced in dollars as $25 sounds better than just under quarter of a million kip!
It is our last day here tomorrow which is a shame as this is such a great town. I think we will go to the palace and maybe a couple of wats. It is a really nice town for just wandering about in.
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