Sabaidee

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Woke up with a dodgy tummy...probably all the whiskey and coke from last night. Really could have stayed in bed a bit longer but we'd booked the mountain bikes to see the waterfalls, we eventually picked them up at 10.30, an hour and half late. We had breakfast, I had some dodgy scrambled eggs which pretty well much immediately gave me a bad case of the you know what...immodium time!
We didn't have a map for the Tad Sae waterfall but Baz got the gist from the owner of our guesthouse and told us about 17km away. We set off through Luang Prabang and quickly got into the countryside, loads of little stalls at the side of the road, selling the same stuff, how on earth they make any money is beyond me! All the kids again running up to us, saying sabaidee, sabaidee (hello), we must have said sabaidee 200 times!!
After about 20 minutes we came to Tad Thong waterfall, we initially thought it was Tad Sae and when we got there it was empty just a small cafe near by. It's only small but beautiful. Baz got in first to check water temp and any water snakes, coast clear so I got in. It wasn't too cold but sometimes you could touch rocks and others nothing, the pressure from the waterfall was really strong too, pushing me into the little cove where there were a few mean looking spiders so I got out.
There were little steps leading into the woods so we went for the walk and there were more waterfalls, it's lovely but seemed to be unvisited by tourists, which is probably a good thing. On the way back to the bikes I some how lost my watch which put me in a mood and when we got back to the main road I really didn't want to ride another, god knows how long to Tad Sae to see another waterfall. We ended up going and my mood took another nose dive when the journey ahead was mainly downhill, steep downhill and all I could think about was getting back up these hills to get back to Luang Prabang! Poor Baz, he was very patient and after about 3 hours I think I came round...moody cow!
We got down to the river and had to take a little boat to Tad Sae, that was fun and scary, one little bit of rocking of thge boat and it feels like you're going to fall in. Tad Sae wasn't that impressive, it all seemed a bit too perfect, a bit man-made. We did see the elephants bathing though, which was cool. Had a bite to eat and then set off back, I was convinced we would get a touk touk no problem, we couldn't so uphill it was 😞
Actually, it wasn't that bad, Baz told me what gears to be in, he is the expert after all, riding his bike to work for the last 15 months. We got to the top of the hill, only slight moaning from Miss Elkin and it was all downhill from there. We caught an amazing sunset enroute and got back just before dark, about 6ish. Went to the food markets for out tea, grilled fish, it was gorgeous and cheap about 2 quid. Went to the bar where we met the girls yesterday, said our goodbyes and got an early night, up at 8am for 5 hour trip to Vang Vieng.

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