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Published: November 22nd 2005
Fiona takes control
on the Nam Kam River in Luang Prabang, Laos.We were soooo glad to finally arrive in Luang Prabang after the worst ten hours of our lives. The bus journey was pretty bumpy and I spent 9 of the ten hours with my head stuck in a bag, and Andrew, unusually, was quite ill as well. So with that experience behind us we decided to spend a couple of days lazing around in Luang Prabang before starting to see the sights. We had also decided to fly back to Vientiane before flying to Hanoi instead of the bus again, phew!
This small town has become quite touristy, although still has wonderful charm and again, the people are welcoming and friendly. We got a nice guest house by the Mekong River for only 3 pounds a night so we decided to stay for a week.
Life is very slow paced here and an hour feels more like three, but we are still enjoying this after the hustle and bustle of China and after nearly 11 months of constantly moving on, so we decided just to do a couple of activities here and the rest of the time just do very little.
Luang Prabang definitely caters for the tourist
The night market
in Luang Prabang, Laos. and thus the prices are much higher than in the less popular Capital city Vientiane. As usual though we managed to hunt down a couple of cheaper places off the main street for eating and drinking. Andrew found a nice wee pub (Martin's) owned by a Norwegian man and his Lao wife, so Martin's (named after their 16 month old son, a beautiful tan-skinned blonde boy!!) became our local and we met some nice folk in there of an evening. They showed movies every night and we even got to see Braveheart.
After a few days of doing very little we decided to go and book a tour at one of the many tour offices in town. We eventually settled on a full day of kayaking along the Nam River. We were told that it would be pretty easy, no big rapids so we were looking forward to seeing some beautiful scenery and a pleasant ride along the river.
We set of early morning and drove for about two hours north of Luang Prabang to get to the spot where we would begin Kayaking. There were 6 on the tour, two Swedish girls, a German couple and Andrew
What are you looking at?
it's like these kids never seen a white person before. and I. We got into a double kayak with Andrew at the back steering and me in the front doing my best. The river was very calm when we got in and we had life jacket's and helmet's on so we felt safe.
So the first rapid is approaching us and looks pretty fierce, we had only been in the kayak for about 3 minutes at this point so we thought this will be easy. Three seconds later we were in the water, the kayak turned over and I went right down underneath it, it was pretty scary, Andrew was swept one way and I was swept the other. Andrew managed to keep a hold of a paddle and ended up marooned on a little rocky island with one of the Swedish girls who had also come out. I continued to be swept away and tried to grab a hold of all the rocks that I passed but instead just battered myself against them, pretty quickly though one of the guides got to me and lifted me by the back of my life vest out of the water like a wet dog and flopped my on the front of
Fiona's saviour
he picked her up out the water like a wet dog and belly-flopped her on to his canoe. his kayak. Oh my god I was thinking that this was probably one of the scariest experiences of my life.
Shortly after that Andrew and I were reunited in our Kayak, to my relief, and we set of again. I was pretty worried about Andrew because after we came out of the kayak I couldn't see him anywhere, meanwhile he is doing his superhero bit and trying to save the Swedish girl!
Needless to say we went in again at the next three rapids but then found a rhythm and finally got back to dry land about 5 pm. I have never been so relieved to be alive than I was that day, it sounds totally melodramatic but if you have never done it before and have not been told what to expect it is frightening.
So we were back to the relaxing again after that day as I had bruised myself all over and had mental sunburn on my legs, nothing is ever easy when I'm involved, I always seem to be the one who gets injured or sun burnt or sick!!!
A great time was had in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos and
Monks hard at work
repairing one of the many Wats in Luang Prabang we were reluctant to leave it's pleasent shores as we had been told that Vietnam was, much like China, was totally mental busy and really full-on. Just as we were starting to relax and think of Christmas we're back on the move for a 30 day trip through Vietnam, from North to South, next stop Ha Noi.
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