Luang Prabang

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The morning we crossed the border, we had to get up wicked early. The Mekong River was completely covered in fog, and it was a chilly morning. Everyone was really excited for the slow boat because fog always provides a wonderful view. We piled into a tuk-tuk that took us to the Thai border, which was easy enough. Hand them your things, get a stamp, and then pay 20 baht (which very few of us even had left) and take the bus over the Friendship Bridge to the Laos border. We got to the Laos border and filled out immigration cards and waited in line to hand over our passports and photos. The way we got them back was by clumping around a window while a woman held up each passport. You craned your neck, and eventually the owner of the passport would come forward, pay the fee, and claim their visa. Really efficient system.

Once we all got our passports, we sat outside and waited for about an hour and a half until our bus arrived to take us to the pier. On the bus, everyone was putting their passports in a bag, which...was a bit nerve-wracking. The bag never got to us, so we left the bus with our passports, but that turned out to be more complicated because they were just taking them to put tickets in. A guy made announcements to us about the slow boat, and then Noa (the Dutch girl) and I trudged out of the pier town area to find an ATM that dispensed 1.5 million kip when you pressed the 1 million button. Money in hand, we quickly bought sandwiches and snacks. Noa, Seb, Sam, and I were some of the last people on the slow boat, which was set up like a bus or plane. It was 6 bus seats wide with one aisle down the middle. We threw our stuff in the back and found seats relatively close to each other. I was lucky and had one seat open in the middle. We started our 6-hour journey down the Mekong. It was beautiful. The fog had cleared and the sky was blue. The Mekong, which runs through most of Southeast Asia was brown and gross. We passed by mountains and boulders and tiny villages. The river snaked its way down the border and then swiftly turned left, headed into the heart of Laos. I blogged and read my book and listened to music.

We arrived in Pakbeng around 5:00. We got off the boat, and the four of us got a hotel for 50,000 kip per person ($1=8000 kip). The hotel was really nice with a river view from the balcony. We got settled and went into town for dinner. We found a restaurant that served buffalo steaks and the four of us gorged on steak with mashed potatoes for the first time in a while. Then we headed to Happy Bar, which served Lao whisky. After lots of cards and dancing and whisky banana shakes, we headed up to bed.

The next morning we woke up really early to get good seats on the boat. Except everyone else had the same idea, so we didn't really bother. We sat down to have breakfast and buy loads of food for the boat that day. The boat we got on the second day was set up like a diner. They made us take off our shoes, and the seats were wooden benches around tables. It ended up being a really fun boat ride. I wish I could travel everywhere by slow boat.

First of all, the bathrooms were really nice, and the boat provided slippers to wear in the bathroom. Everyone we had met from the previous days happened to be on this slow boat, so we all knew each other already. We spent the day eating, talking, walking around, playing cards, taking pictures. There was an English family next to us with a 10-year-old girl and her younger brother. The parents were taking them on a 7-month trip around the world. The girl was not happy to do schoolwork, but she was incredibly social and showed us her diary of her trip thus far. It was full of pictures and tickets and a bit of writing. I miss being a teacher. Mom was talking to me about homeschooling, which she's having a rough time with.

We arrived about 8km outside of Luang Prabang at 4:30. I should mention that the day before, my throat had been a bit dry. On the boat, I was starting to feel a bit sick. But a cold sick, which makes a lot of sense since I've spent the last couple of weeks in places where it's freezing at night and wicked hot during the day. I got a fever on the boat but drank a ton of water and tea and played through it. When the tuk-tuk arrived in the city, I walked through the entire night market with my bag, only to be told I had gone the wrong way to my hostel. At this point, I was giving into the sickness and was SO cranky. When I finally arrived at the hostel, I threw myself on the bed. There were no private rooms left, but my dorm only had 4 people. Basically as soon as I fell on the bed, my body said, “ok. You're here. Time to die.” I immediately got a splitting headache, runny nose, and cough. I had no appetite and no internet. I sat on my bed in the dark listening to podcasts and trying really hard not to fall asleep. Eventually I left my hostel room and went out into the lobby to ask for a piece of bread, because I had eaten nothing since about 2:00. Thankfully they gave me one, and I went back to my dark room. I fell asleep at 9pm and slept for 12 hours.

When I woke up the next morning I was feeling slightly better, but I wasn't ready to move on yet. I booked myself an extra night at the hostel and ate scrambled eggs with bread for breakfast. I walked 15 minutes downtown to a cafe that had internet to have a cup of tea. I still wasn't fully myself, and when I arrived, I realized my phone was still at the hostel. I went back, got my phone and my life together, and then went back to the cafe for peppermint tea and a cinnamon bun. Overpriced, but exactly what I needed. I got in touch with Sam, Noa, and Sebastian who were at the other hostel. They were going to the waterfalls today, so I decided to join them. When I met them at their hostel, they had also booked a third night in Luang Prabang. Perfect. They had also met an English couple, Callum and Aimee, who were going to join us.

The tuktuk arrived to take us to the waterfalls. The driver took us a little ways and then stopped on the side of the road to show us a picture and ask if these were the waterfalls. The picture looked like waterfalls, and Aimee (who had been there before) said it was probably right, so we drove through the mountains. After a while, Aimee said she didn't recognize anything, but maybe we were going a different way. We turned down a dirt road and drove to a river. We each paid 10,000 kip (a little more than $1) to sit in a very shallow, narrow boat that sort of reminded me of the tree trunks we used as boats in the Amazon. After getting taxied down a beautiful river, we arrived at an elephant camp, where a really sad elephant was climbing out of the water. We bought tickets for the Tad Sae waterfall and started to hike. At this point, we all knew it was the wrong waterfall, but we were in too deep. Around the corner from the ticket office was a waterfall with clear green water, lots of people sunbathing, restaurants, and a pathetically short zip-line. We saw people hiking, and no one swimming, so we headed up the trail. We hiked for a while, most people in flip-flops, and we finally came to terraced waterfalls with bright green pools of water that reminded me a whole lot of the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia.

We continued hiking up some really steep stairs that seemed to take forever. At the top we came to a fork in the road. Rather than go straight and see if there were more waterfalls, the boys decided to pull a Robert Frost and take the path less traveled, which was a steep embankment we slipped and slid down until we arrived almost where we had started. But we were at the waterfalls, and the water looked good enough to swim in. I was the first one in. It was freezing cold, but it was too beautiful to not go fully in. Everyone else followed, and we shivered and swam around. We swam to the waterfalls and climbed on rocks and got back massages from the water pounding on our necks and shoulders. We were the only ones around. After about half an hour we got out of the water and hiked back to the restaurant area. We decided to get some food, so we sat at a restaurant right next to the green pools to eat. We ordered and waited. While we were waiting, some poor little girl was vomiting into a trashcan right behind us. “This bodes well for the food,” someone said. I was still feeling a bit ill, so I had chicken noodle soup and made it nice and spicy so that I could clear my sinuses and actually taste it. We all ate, and it all went down just fine. We got a water taxi back, found the tuktuk driver on the other side, and went home.

I walked back to my hostel and showered and then met the rest of the group back at theirs. We walked around trying to find a market with cheap alcohol (no 7/11s in Laos. Boo) and finally found a market that seemed to have everything. They found bottles of Laos whiskey for $1.75, so they bought 4. Again, I was sick, so I did not partake. We went back to the hostel and played a drinking game (me with water) and then walked down to the night market for dinner. I had chicken on a stick and Laos noodles. Both so delicious. Everyone was going back to the hostel to have a night out, so I went back to the market where they had gotten the whiskey. I bought myself some Ritz crackers and a small wheel of Brie (Brie!!!!! Real cheese!!!!!!!!!!!) I went back to my hostel, laid in bed, read an entire book, ate my cheese, and fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning feeling much better. I can't say the same for my friends. I ate breakfast and met them at their hostel at 11. Sam and Noa opted out of going to the other waterfalls, so Seb, Callum, Aimee, and I struck a deal with a tuktuk driver and went. We had asked him to take us to the south bus station to buy tickets and then take us to the Kuang Si waterfalls. As he drove I said, “I'm pretty sure the bus station was only 1.5 km away. I wonder where he's taking us.” When he stopped for gas, I pointed to the bus station again on the map. He nodded. Then he took us to the waterfalls. He waited in the parking lot for our return, and we set off. It was pretty cold out, but we were at least determined to see the Kuong Xi waterfalls, which was the thing to do in Luang Prabang. We bought our tickets among scores of Chinese tourists, and went in. On the way in, you pass by the Malaysian Sun Bear Rescue (Kathleen's favorite animal). The sun bears are killed to make herbal medicines, so this, you know, rescues them from that. They are really cute and have really long tongues that look ridiculous. Google them. I couldn't get a picture of a sun bear with its tongue sticking out of its mouth, but the bears seemed happy in their enclosure, which was a lot like a huge playground.

After the sun bears, we arrived at the waterfalls. Unlike the ones from the previous day, the water in these waterfalls was a cloudy blue because the ground was all limestone. They were unbelievably beautiful. Aimee quickly deemed it too cold to go in, and Seb didn't want to swim, so Callum and I went in. We swam around for a while and climbed up into the waterfalls where some Koreans got pictures with us. We climbed up a thick branch that overhangs into the pool and jumped off (only about 2 meters). By the time we got out, the place was overrun with Chinese tourists. We continued to hike upwards because it seemed like the thing to do.

Here's where it gets exciting. We got to a place with three terraced waterfalls and a sign that said, “Cautionary hint: do not swim here. Danger.” Cal and Seb decided to scramble down the embankment to take pictures. Seb handed me his stuff, and with his phone in his hand, started down the steep mud. He slipped and the phone shot of his hand like a bar of soap. Right. Into. The. Waterfall. He looked like a lost gazelle for a minute, and the phone did not pop up. Cal handed Seb his camera (which Seb immediately put around his neck) and went in the pool to start looking for it. After a few minutes of swimming around, he gave up and got out of the water. Seb changed into his bathing suit and went in to have a look. He rummaged around near the waterfall and then used his feet to search the bottom of the pool. After about 3 minutes, he stuck his hand behind a rock and emerged with his phone held high over his head. He climbed up and handed it to me. I took it and ran to a random restaurant that happened to be right there in the middle of this hiking trail. I explained the situation and paid 5000 kip for a bag of dried rice, which I stuck the phone in and brought back to Seb. We walked back to the tuktuk, Cal's flip flop broke, and we waited for the third bad thing to happen.

This time the tuktuk drove us to the bus station. Hostels were charging 115,000 or 120,000 kip for a bus to Vang Vieng, but I had heard that the local bus was only 90,000 kip plus a 5,000 kip tuktuk ride from the hostel. We got tickets for the 9:30 bus the next morning for all 6 of us and asked the tuktuk driver to pick us up the next morning at 9 for 5,000 kip each. By the time we got back, it was 3:00, and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. Aaaaaand we were jonesing for some fondue. Sam and Noa had just eaten, so the rest of us went downtown to get baguettes. Never has a bacon, chicken, cheese, and avocado sandwich tasted so good (most of these things are not easy to find in Southeast Asia).

After lunch we each paid 20,000 kip to hike up to the temple on the hill set in the middle of Luang Prabang. The view was spectacular. There were old women selling little birds in little cages and the idea is that you buy them to set them free and it's good luck. No thank you. The view was spectacular. We walked down the other side and stopped to see Buddha's footprint. A monk practiced his English with me for a bit. We walked back to the hostel to meet up with Sam and Noa. We hung out for a while playing card games, and then we headed out to find fondue.

To get to the fondue place, we had to walk through the night market. Easier said than done. The night market in Luang Prabang takes up many blocks. There are four rows of tents, and you pick a side. The tents form a canopy over the whole street, and you have to be really careful about hitting your head, walking into a pole, walking into other people, and stepping on merchandise. We shopped around the night market for a while before finally emerging on the other side. We went to the fondue place where...the fondue was 118,000 kip (about $15) for 200g of fondue. So...we went and had mediocre food for much cheaper someplace else. I had grilled duck.



That night we took it easy. After dinner I went back to my hostel room and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and walked over to the other hostel after breakfast with all my stuff. We got in the tuktuk that was waiting for us and went to the bus station. The bus was full of everyone we had met on the slow boat, and they had all paid way more money for the same bus. Go team cheap backpackers.

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[D MJ Binkley]

Laos
One of our favorite countries. Life simple pleasures.