Elephant Day

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November Elephant Day, Luang Prabang



We had another lovely breakfast along the Mekong. It is a nice way to start the day with a great cup of coffee. The staff are amazingly attentive.....as soon as your coffee is half done they are topping it up.



We were a small group of 5 that went to the elephant village: Oliver, an American , and a newly wed Italian couple. As we left Luang Prabang , thought the route and road looked familar. And .it was the same gravel road that I rode out to the waterfalls 8-9 years ago. It just was not as dusty since I was sitting in an air conditioned van and the road had not just been ploughed .Travel agents advertise cycling to the waterfalls all over Luang Prabang. Don't!



The Elephant Village is located along the river and looks over lush fields with mountains in the background. We have seen very few rice paddies or fields since the land is too rough to farm. They farm small plots along the river but they are smaller than our yard. This is not an easy country. Our guide, Khamlah talks of his village in the forest. They grow rice. If they have rice they are happy. They get other food from the forest either by hunting or gathering fruit and vegetables.



I'll leave the description of our day with the elephants to Deb since she's done such a good job. Suffice to say it was a great day and we had a lot of time with the elephants. I went from taking pictures of elephants feeding and keeping my distance to taking pictures of the baby elephant as other elephants were walking past me a few feet away. They are big animals and we never forgot that. fortunately the always moved slowly around us.



We spent an hour at the waterfall which was more than enough. We were very happy that we had decided to spend the day with the elephants instead of at the waterfalls. I have no idea what we would do with a day there.



Back at Luang Prabang we had time to go up the +300 steps to the lookout over the city and watch the sunset. Very pleasant and a bit crowded. Then on to the night market for some shopping before dinner.

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