Ugh. No more stairs!

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Up at the crack of dawn, as usual, not just to the static sounds of our alarm clocks, but to the perpetual crow of the neighborhood roosters, we decided to kick up our morning jog a bit and climb the stairs up one side of the Phousi Stupa and down the other. We were both sweating endless streams of perspiration. It was very cool though as we realized we were in the locals’ workout circuit. I guess the stupa stairs are like the Santa Monica stairs… although one set of the stupa stairs is all you need to feel like you’ve had a good workout.

Before breakfast, we popped in on a few tour agencies to get in with a hill tribe trekking group. Discovering that no one was really doing that today, we had an option to river raft but decided to mountain bike trek to an elephant farm and then to some waterfalls.

After an hour of a lot of uphill biking, riding the elephant through the jungle of Laos was a nice reprieve. It’s something that can be missed, yet it was oddly fun. And, yes we touched his skin… elephants have really wirey hair and it feels like stuble. Back on the bikes, we rode to a long boat launch, putted across the Nam Khan, to the Phousi waterfalls - gorgeous! We swam and ate a traditional Lao lunch: sticky rice, a tangy bowl of a green leaf veggie in a ginger-like broth with eggplants the size of cherry tomatoes and eaten raw, sausage (which I said I wouldn’t eat while in Asia, but glad that I did), and some cooked beef that was very lean, very tasty, and very tough.

After lunch, we were back on the boat, back on the bikes, and then the pain started. Given all the uphill we encountered on our ride through the countryside, the rode back was all uphill and the quads were feeling it - not good. We had to stop several times to seek out shade, drink some water, and hope that we could still get back on the bike… the morning stairs were now seeming like a bad idea.

After we ditched the bikes and before we showered, we found a malt shop like place with dirt floors and questionable seating along the Mekong river, just down from our guesthouse. The woman whipped us up a fruit ice that was delicious. We sat, still sweating, among a sea of 12-14 year olds, out from school, while they drank bottle after bottle of Beerlao and clearly getting loaded.

Quickly showered, we dashed off to another long boat ride, this time across the Mekong to view Louang Prabang at sunset, recommended by our boatman Campong. We had to climb even more stairs and we accosted by a slough of kids wanting us to buy flowers from them to give to the Buddha at the top of the stairs in an old Wat (temple).

The best part of the whole day, once back to the main town, we made our way to one of the old royal residences that now operates as a five star hotel. The garden bar was an oasis of quite and happy hour was two for one. Starting with Beerlao, we quickly switched up to our vodka/lime/M150 favorite: Villa Santi, if you’re ever in the area is an absolute must.

With a good buzz on, we headed right for the night markets and we shopped, and shopped, and shopped. Great stuff: textiles, wood carvings, silver, paper lanterns… great stuff.

Before heading back to call it a night, we remembered that we hadn’t eaten and knew that we were totally hungry. We stopped in on the night food stalls and picked up a skewered chicken breast and a whole fish. A local 14 year old had to show me how to get my fish out of its bamboo BBQing skewer… that was some fish!

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