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Published: October 15th 2007
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We flew from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang on September 24th, arriving in the early afternoon. We paid too much, as always, for a taxi ride from the airport into town. Our guide book didn't list many budget hotel options, so we set out on foot to find somewhere to stay. We walked along the mud-brown Mekong river, checking a variety of overly pricey places before finding a decent and affordable room at Bounthieng Hotel across the street from the river. Then, as usual in a new town, we set out to get a feel for the area around us. We were a fairly surprised to find a very touristy and upscale area, full of costly restaurants with repetitive "western food" menus. Luang Prabang, in its entirety, is a UNESCO World Heritage site, based on its well-preserved colonial architecture. It was certainly a beautiful town architecturally, but the endless souvenir shops occupying the old teak buildings somewhat soured the experience. It was hard to find cheap local food, so we ended up eating Indian food on our first night in Laos. In the evening a huge tourist market appeared in the streets near our hotel, with bored hill tribe women selling
tapestries, fishermen pants, embroidered purses and silk to endless parades of shoppers. The locals were certainly friendly, but the authenticity of the place seemed to have been lost.
Although Luange Prabang itself disappointed us somewhat, we enjoyed our day-trips to nearby Pak Ou cave and Tad Sae waterfall. We hired a tuktuk to take us to both, bumping and puttering our way 45 minutes out of town to a tiny village across from the cave. At the village we boarded wooden longboats and crossed to the cave entrance, which opens onto the water. Inside the small cave are countless old Buddha figures, most of them rusted and corroded and broken but all of them arranged into crowded clusters. There was something endearing about the battered and broken Buddhas, and I think I preferred them to many of the perfect shiny gold figures I've seen elsewhere. We climbed a steep set of wooden stairs to another small cave, which was very dark and not terribly interesting. Then it was back to the boat to cross the river, back through the village and back to the tuktuk to go to Tad Sae waterfall.
There are a number of big waterfalls
around Luang Prabang, but based on photos Tad Sae looked to be the most picturesque. We got there around 5 p.m., when it was nearly empty of tourists. The tuktuk stopped in another small village, and we took another wooden boat a little ways downriver to the falls. We had expected a nice waterfall, but we were stunned by the idyllic beauty of Tad Sae. Water cascaded gently over perfectly smooth cliffs, forming huge shallow aqua-blue pools. A bamboo bridge crossed the falls halfway down, with a ladder leading into the largest pool for swimming. We had planned to leave Luang Prabang the next day, but decided we needed a full day at Tad Sae instead. We left as dark set in, determined to return the next morning.
That night we decided to splurge and have dinner at Le Elephant, a bustling gourmet restaurant with a fantastic menu. Although way over our usual budget, it was some of the best food I've ever had. My goat cheese and sun-dried tomato salad was fantastic, as was the French Onion soup and Jeff's fish fillet. Our bottle of wine was somehow extremely good also, despite being one of the cheapest on
the menu. While we ate a neighborhood festival began on the street outside, with laughing locals drinking beer and dancing to blaring music. As we left the restaurant a woman pulled me into the crowd to dance, and I obliged with a few wrist-twisting moves (learned at a tiny local dance bar in Nepal) before slipping away to our hotel for the night.
The next morning we walked to the main road to find a tuktuk to take us to the waterfall, and on a whim decided to ask another couple if they wanted to join us, to share the cost of the trip. We asked the first couple we saw--Canadians named Drawsen and Lani--and, despite having never heard of the waterfall, they agreed to join us. We ended up getting along great, and we spent a fun day with them, swimming and exploring the falls. Jeff spent a few hours taking photos of the falls while Drawsen, Lani and I swam and sunned. There were a restaurant and bar and even elephant rides on offer, but for most of the day there were only a few other tourists. Before we knew it it was getting dark again, and
we all returned to the boat and tuktuk to head back to Luang Prabang. The four of us got dinner together at a row of street-food stalls, slurping down spicy pork noodle soup and gnawing on grilled chicken on wooden skewers. Then we said our goodbyes and Jeff and I returned to our hotel for bed. We would leave the next morning by minivan to head to Vang Vieng.
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JOEY
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great pics and BLOG!!!
ok ms writer!! i thought you had a little bloggy thing going on but your a writer and should have a site of your own!!!!! with advertising and all kinds of good stuff! great work and great pics to go with it!!! looking forward to the next blog:)))))))