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Published: November 11th 2007
After leaving Chiang Mai we headed to a new country, Laos. We decided to take a 1 hour flight, not the usual backpacker way of getting there but it sounded way more appealing than the 2 day slow boat from Thailand to Laos. Even flying to Laos was an experience, they are a very small airline and don't publish their safety records! The plane was fairly small and only half full so once everybody was on we took off, that was about 25 min ahead of schedule. Arriving in Laos you flew over the Mekong river, a dirty orange colour and huge. Luang Prabang is a lovely little town with a French colonial appearance and was really laid back and peaceful, a nice change from the chaos of Thailand. The people were so friendly and smiley. We found a guesthouse fairly fast, just off the main street, on the Mekong River. That night we ate at one of the restaurants on the river, but during the dinner there was a thunder storm so we had to gather up our dinner and make a dash across the road to the guesthouse.
Day 2 in Luang Prabang we booked a day trip
to see some of the sights. First was a trip up the Mekong River on a slow boat to Pak Ou Caves. Our first boat was tiny, about 6 of us on it, we had to sit one on each sit down along the boat to try and balance the weight, first stop was for petrol at a station along the river, next thing our boat broke down so we had to jump boat when the next one passed. Along the way we stopped at a "Whiskey Village", were thay make the snake whiskey. Got a few samples but the village itself was a bit too commercial so didn't stay too long. Next were the caves where there are thousands of Budda Images. Was expecting a massive cave, it wasn't, I've seen bigger potholes! Then got the boat back to Luang Prabang, very slow, can't imagine having to get it from Thailand, half a day was enough!
Our second half of the day was a visit to Tat Kuang Si waterfall. The bus journey there was an experience in itself, because Laos is fairly hilly the roads weave around hills and up and down, it was a mini bus
Titanic
This one lasted about 5 minutes!packed full, one lady got sick and we are lucky to have survived the way he was taking those turns. It was all worth it because the waterfall was pretty spectacular, because its the rainy season it was overflowing on both sides, usually you can climb up to the top along either side but there was so much water the path had become part of the waterfall and the the steps were washed away, we ventured up regardless and got saturated! Unfortunately the 3 pools where you can swim were so overflowing it was too dangorous. They also have a tiger and a bear enclosure on the way back down. They fired a few bananas in for the bear to get him moving when we arrived.
Spent the rest of the time in Luang Prabang walking around the night market to pick up the obligatory Beer Laos T-Shirt and having a few beers. Before we left we climbed up the temple at Phu Si to get a birds eye view of Luang Prabang, 328 steps!
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Arthur and Jan
non-member comment
Some journey so far
We have enjoyed reading your blog so far. It certainly seems to us that you are not short of water even if it is the falling from sky type. Mind you that is not dissimilar to Cork really. Obviously a good time is being had and we hope you bring back the means of making the snake wine. Greatly amused at the thought of the sweating Russian with the rucksack - must be love! We are sure that Allen would have carried an even bigger rucksack for you Louise if you had asked. The pig gutting seems our kind of thing although we now have access to a licensed pork shop that has signs up in english and arabic warning the muslim population not to enter under any circumstances. We look forward to more of your travels in due course and be safe.