Day 31 - 32: Luang Prabang

---

We woke up and had our breakfast and collected the pack-lunch that our guest house had provided and made our way to the boat, nice and early in order to get a good seat. We were looking for our boat number from the day before.....but got pointed towards a different boat. We had read somewhere that quite often they switch boats so we weren't that surprised. We were however a bit surprised at just how different this boat was!! Gone were the nice seats.....the space......all replaced by wooden benches one after the other (Would our bums survive the 8 hour journey!!!). We were reluctant to get on and kept saying "boat 10, boat 10" but they would just reply "Louang Prabang" and point, so we boarded the boat. When we eventually got on we saw the couple we had met from yesterday and were reassured slightly. We spent the next 30 odd minutes watching confused looking people slowly get on the boat and watched how full the boat seemed to be getting. One hour passed and we were still waiting for the stragglers....the boat was completely full!! Everyone was looking round saying where will they sit.....where will I sit?? Suddenly out of the blue a bigger slow boat pulled up alongside and from the front somewhere we heard someone shout "Lounag Prabang!!" We'd got up so early to get a decent seat that the thought of now losing it spurred us in to action!! We didn't go to the front of the boat to change, the 4 of us just dived across between the boats where we were sat. Scrapped knees and a few bruises later we had managed to bag a few of the more comfy chairs success....or so we thought. When things finally settled down we noticed that quite a few people had not bothered to move accross. What followed was utter confusion....we weren't sure if the boat was the right one....then we heard it would take several hours more. Our good Canadian friend Adam managed to lose his bag in the crossing somewhere and for quite a while we suspected it had fallen between the boats, it did eventually turn up at the front of the boat. 30 minutes later we decided that the comfy chairs were too good to pass up, that and the fact that we probably faced 7 hours on the floor if we swapped back to the original boat.

The journey was much the same as the day before but a little more subdued. The scenery was slightly more impressive as well I thought. We pulled in about 10 minutes before the other boat....VICTORY!! Luang Prabang was quite a large town right on the river and it looked nice from the boat. We had some idea of where we wanted to stay so we jumped off the boat and started walking down the street. 20 minutes later, sweating and frustrated we had managed to walk past the guest house we'd been looking for (the guide book honestly hasn't been great!!). We turned around and tried a few places not far from where we had been dropped off. We found a nice place near the centre and got settled.

We spent the first night walking round the markets and exploring the town. There are a lot of french colonial buildings and everything is centred around a large temple. We had a nice meal in a restaurant and booked ourselves on a trip the following day to see some caves and a waterfall, the two main attractions.

We met a history professor from the US at the pick-up point who was on a research trip who was very interesting. He even shared a dorm room with Gordon Brown whilst he was studying at uni....although Heidi insists it was David Cameron (it wasn't!!). We also met Kris Kristofferson's doopleganger (or the real thing!). First up was the cave visit which involved a slow boat journey back the way we had come for an hour or so. We seemed to be in the slowest boat and despite leaving first, arrived there last. The journey was long and dull....and unfortunately the caves were just as bad. So wasted morning....to top things off we were an hour late, so had no time for lunch or a drink and had to run to get to the next pick-up point.

Next up was the waterfall, which was about 20km out of town. We were late leaving so due to Kris Kristofferson's girlfriend getting her bikini. The people on the bus weren't too pleased. Anyway we arrived and it looked busy....tuk tuks and buses everywhere. We grabbed a bag of crisps for lunch and paid the admission fee. First attraction was a bear rescue centre, which had Heidi captivated (she even bought a t-shirt to help the cause). Next up were four local kids who blocked a bridge and begged for money, they even wanted the coke that Heidi was drinking (we just pushed our way past).

The waterfall was breathtaking....surrounded by numerous blue lagoons (bluer than you can imagine) as you climbed up towards the main fall. Everybody was swiiming or taking photos it was like something from a movie set. We immediately regretted not spending the whole day here. After exploring (and missing a tiger rescue centre??) we went to one of the pools for a swim. It was fairly deserted apart from the four begging kids, who seemed very interested in our bags and stuff. Heidi rightly suggested one of us stayed with the bags....while the other swam.....they were defo after something. We loved it here and reluctantly had to leave.....my advice to anyone, spend the whole day here and pack a lunch.

We watched the sunset from the scared hill in town at the foot of the temple and had a nice last night in town. Tomorrow we travel by mini bus to the booze capital of Laos and the home of tubing!!

---