Day 123: Luang Prabang

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The seven hour bus ride from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang was kind of a mixed bag. Some of the bag held beautiful scenery, but the rest was vomit. The locals just couldn't handle the curvy road and we had to do a lot of puke stops. Luckily steph and I had ipods (well mine is a Zune) so we didn't have to listen to too much of it. Needless to say we were glad to get off the bus.

Luang Prabang is cursed with some of the same priceyness that plagued Vientiane, probably for the same reason (old, rich tourists). Even so, it managed to win us over for a few days. The town has a really cool location, surrounded on 3 sides by rivers. There are TONS of wats (temples) which means lots of monks walking the streets. Good food. Steph was even able to get a bagel and cream cheese! The night market is pretty nice too, lots of local handicrafts for real cheap. I didn't buy anything but steph got an apron, two lampshades and a skirt.

Luang Prabang is also pretty well set up for treks and outdoor stuff. One day we rented a motorbike and drove ourselves to Kuang Si falls. They are amazing, and probably worth the trip to Luang Prabang alone. The water is a shade of turquoise that just doesn't come through in the photos. Something you have to see to believe. There are a few pools for swimming, which I did. We hiked up to the top up the right side, and back down the left side. At the bottom of the falls there are some rescued Asianic black bears, which are endangered. We donated some spare kip to the cause. On the way back to town we stopped at the local Phousi Market, and I bought a pair of snazzy bright blue flip flops (my old ones had just broken).

The next day we booked a 1/2 day trip to Tadsae waterfall, which included an elephant ride. The picture on the poster showed the elephant walking through a pool, spraying water out of its trunk, with beautiful cascading water in the background. We should have done our homework though, because it turns out that the waterfall only has water during the wet season, and we were well in the dry season. Riding an elephant through a dried up muddy hole just wasn't as amazing. So that trip was OK... but not recommended unless there is water in the falls.

Later that day we climbed Phousi Mountain, which is really no more than a hill. It is in the center of town, and has a stupa at the top that serves as a landmark from pretty much anywhere. It has some nice buddha statues on the way up, and a "buddha footprint" in the rock. The footprint is almost as big as I am tall, so if it's real then that buddha must have been at least 100 ft tall. Once we climbed to the top there was a lady selling little birds in bamboo cages for a dollar. Supposedly it is good luck to release them from the top. Steph felt bad for the little guys so we bought two and set them free. Ironically the money probably just goes into caging more birds...

Our travel time is starting to run low so we decided to leave Luang Prabang after 3 days. With more time it would have been cool to take a river boat to one of the many secluded towns surrounding Luang Prabang. BUT, things as they are, we decided to get a flight to Chiang Mai, back in Thailand. From there we went to Pai (where we are now) which I'll save for another blog, and we'll probably be in northern thailand for another 10 days or so before we fly to the philippines, our last stop. At least that's the plan at the moment.

As usual, here's some of the better pictures from Luang Prabang:

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