Luang Phabang and s l o w boat

After our misadventures in Vang Vieng I took 2 days off and did absolutely nothing in Luang Phabang.

We ended up staying for 7 days in total; it's a really nice place and is everything that Vang Vieng isn't. Tourism has nicely integrated in to the Luang Phabang culture.
Everynight there is a night market on the main street in town. Everything is sold there, mainly clothes and hand crafts. The food is really good too and you can get a plate of veg. buffet for 5,000 kip or 50c euro.
As in all of Laos there is a government cerfew, so everthing closes at 23.30. The only place to get a drink after is the bowling alley, which I never made it too...
There is street food to be had all day and it's all good! The people too are amazing; they alwalys seem happy and like to chat. There is a saying "Loas people are very poor and all they have is the smiles on their faces", or something like that... It really is true though, everyone we met were chilled and happy.

We got a move on on our third day and went to Luang Phabang's world heritage site; the waterfalls. They were really nice, cold but nice. The big falls were cool, we went to the top and swam in the pools on the way down. My battery ran out in my camera so I only got a few shots...
Thje second set, smaller but with more pools were great to see but really have to be appreciated in October with high water.

We went on a 1 day trek the next day which was better than I expected. We walked up small farmer paths and through high growing grass. I was imagining big open paths and lots of tourists. Thankfully we didn't see one other tousist all day. We stopped off at a local village for lunch at 12.30 and there were a bunch of locals drinking "Lao Lao" Laos local whiskey. We were forced to take a few shots with them, the path back was a little easier which was probably a good thing.

after all that sight seeing we took a day off to organise the next part of our travel before we did a full day kayaking down one of the smaller tributaries. It was a good day but had too much paddling and too few rapids for my liking. Again I picked up a few injuries, with blisters on my feet and hands from trying to keep up with the guide and maeve in their twin kayak. Since he paddles every day when he goes its like he turned on a motor at the back of the kayak!!


We had another early morning when we got up for our slow boat heading toward Thailand. Slow boats what can I say they are very very slow, especially going up river!! We had a few drinks and met a few people to go out with when we stopped each night but our boats were full of mainly local Laos groups; the Thailand to Laos is definitly a busier route, all of the boats going down river were full of westeners. Its probably better for our health not to be drinking all day but I still feel I missed out.

Our 4 hour trip for the boarder to Chang Mai ended up taking 7 hours but hey we got there in the end.

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