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We ended our tour of the Golden Triangle in Chiang Kong, the main border crossing into Laos, across the Mekong River from Thailand. We spent one night there in a lovely little teak villa that was situated on the banks of the Mekong. The villa owner was very sweet, if not a bit crazy, as soon as we checked in Kat went with her to look at the room while Ed guarded the bags. She was soon being felt up by the woman over her shoulders, arms, hips before being turned around for a booty feel saying oh aren't you pretty arent you going to give your husband pretty babies. Ed was next with a lighter once over and made us promise to bring our first born back - this was within the first 5 minutes...moving on, the place was wonderful and came complete with an Australian ex-engineer who now is the villa's gardener and he provided us with hours of chat and amusement.
The next day we were onto Luang Prabang, a town in Laos that we had heard amazing things about. Getting there was a little tricky - there are two options - a 2 day boat trip
on a converted merchant vessel (which they pack backpackers onto by their hundred, sometimes, hard woodbenches to be sat on for 8 hours a day and you are forced to stay overnight in some ramshackled village enroute), or the ´fast boat´.
This is basically, as one other bloggger put it, a 12 foot long surf board with a huge engine at the back which they cram a driver and 8 passengers with luggage onto, which makes Luang Prabang in just 5 hours, but is very uncomfortable and quite dangerous by all accounts. Considering Ed was suffering from back pain from having overexerted himself whilst doing his Sun Salutation (Yoga) a few mornings before and how relaxed our parents are about us a taking hazardous trips, we naturally chose the fast boat.
We were processed through Thai emmigration, offered earplugs by the organisers and crammed onto the fast boat with our other travel companions. Effectively sitting with your legs under your chin in a 3 foot long space, we were all in pain within half an hour! Luckily the one local who had been traveling with us got off at a pitstop and we were able to stretch our
legs out into the compartment in front of us. The water and scenery was breathtaking and the speed of the boat made it feel like a real adventure. One of the boats in our party (there were 3 boats traveling together)broke down, and after a few minutes floating down the river, with some violent strokes from a machette, it was fixed.
A while later, we went ashore again so the driver could buy a live iguana from the locals for his dinner. Evernually, we reached shore in Luang Prabang and after climbing up a steep 100ft bank, a tuk tuk driver charged us an exorbitant rate to head into town. For any travelers reading this blog unlike so many we would reccomend the fast boat - keep in mind we traveled it in low season and therefore had a bit more space - but it was beautiful and quite bearable.
Luang Prabang is by all accounts the most beautiful town in South East Asia. It looks like a sleepy french town nestled between two branches of the Mekong River, looked over by a wat on a huge mound overlooking the town. The town was out of a novel
- all of the buildings had been protected by UNESCO so they looked like they could have been plucked right out of some quaint parisian country village. There are no trucks or buses allowed in the town instead the favored mode of transportation are bicycles, so we were quick to rent a couple of bikes and explore.
Practically the only thing to remind us that were in the middle of a fiercely communist country was as we were sitting at a cafe one morning taking our coffee watching all the school kids being lined up outside to exercise- very surreal in the circumstances.
The heat was also something we had to get used to as well - it was very humid and around 40 degrees most of the time, so riding bikes in the blazing sun did a number on us the first day and left Kat with a beauty of a heat rash on her face and neck. We spent a lovely few days ambling around from cafe to cafe which on a budget was tough because all the restaurants and wine bars were amazing very gourmet food with locally produced products and mostly out of our
budget - slightly heartbreaking. As were the lovely hotels, you could get the most amazing, idyllic hotel there for $50 a night, but not for us on this trip! The guest house we stayed in for $20 a night was nice and clean and had tv and AC, but there were times when we were like lets just blow our budget, but thankfully one of us was always strong and said we cant afford it "sigh". However, we did find a wine bar that served some excellent red that we managed to sneak into the budget..
We went to a waterfall one day, and in true Kat and Ed fashion took a different route to the top and before long were hiking up a massive hill (such a trend) over rocks and a bit of water, Kat in her long dress and all. When we finally got to the top we realized we had actually hiked up too far and were in a different place to where everyone else was and where we could swim, so we climbed down and finally found some pools that were the most beautiful blue topaz color. We jumped in for a quick swim,
Ed took the rope which swung him out from a tree to jump into the water, and in true Ed fashion slipped a did a little belly flop in. It really was a very special place.
One evening we walked to the top of a hill in the centre of town to see a temple at sunset, Kat released a few birds that you can buy at the bottom and Ed lit inscents and offered flowers to the buddha in the shrine. We spent another evening watching the new X-Men DVD we purchased at a local bar with a group of other tourists itching for some western entertainment - movie was ok not as good as the others in case anyone's wondering.
We reluctantly packed up our room and went to catch the bus to Viang Vien where we have some whiskey buckets, red bull and tubing waiting for us!
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Katie
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Wow the waterfalls and the water look amazing!! Be safe and continue having the time of your life.