Luang Prabang - We arrived in Laos

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We had enough of Vietnam (not of the countryside, but of the people: Vietnamese are unfriendly! We were looking forward to leave Vietnam to get to know a new country: Laos! With a small aircraft of Lao Airlines, we reached Luang Prabang in the evening. The airport was tiny and the aircraft we came with was the only one at the airport. First of all we had to get our visas....we read that we need 20 dollars each for the visas and those are all dollars we had. However, prices change always, we had to pay 30 dollars each. Uhhh, how to get the money, as there was no ATM anywhere? Easy: We just passed passcontrol, went out the airport and got some cash, returned and got our visas.

We hopped on a taxi with a lady. First questions among travellers (we hate this!) "So, where are you from?" "Germany" and you " Ahhhh, I'm from Holywood"....."ah, and I'm here for the filmfestival, and noone picked me up.....ahhhh and I don't have the number of the hotel.....ahhh, what should I do.....????" She was a real drama queen and we had to smile and behave that we would't start laughing. Poor Lady.

Once we arrive in the city, we had to look for a room. Unfortunately, we are in high season and most affordable rooms were booked, so we had to walk and find a place. After 45 minutes we where gave up and booked us into a 30 dollar room with nice wooden floor. Next day we started to explore the city, while looking for a cheaper room. Finally we found one and stayed there the rest of our days in Luang Prabang.

For exploring the city we rented bikes and rode around. Next day we rented mountainbikes and did a 40km trip in the jungle on a rough dirt road. The day after we wrote xmas cards, enjoyed massages and had fruitshakes under palmtrees at the Mekong River...what a bad time we had! Our favorite part, was the elephant riding and bathing. It never wanted to do this, but on our day with the bikes to the jungle we found an elephant sanctury and resort which seems very fair with the elephant and from what we could judge, the elephants seemed happy. So we rented a motorbike the next day, first time not automatic but Thomas managed 😊 and we went to the elephant village and rode on the elephants. Thomas elephant always wanted to eat and stopped by every tree (elephants eat up to 200kg per day), once we were in the river, Steffi's elephant alway put her head under water for a couple of minutes, whereas Thomas elephant plashed her trunk on the watersurface and got us all wet 😊. It was lots of fun!!!!!

In the evening Marc & Jule also arrived in Luang Prabang, so that we could spend the next day with them before leaving to take the overnight bus to the Gibbon Experience.

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