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Kouang Si Waterfall
Very Nice place to relax. (Scott)
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction". This is true for travel just as much as it is for physics. Thus as we moved on from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang we begin to comprehend our need for relaxation. The law's of thermodynamics were catching up to us which resulted in us slowing down and taking it easy for a bit. So obliging to this universal law we settled into a nice pace in Laos and promptly did nothing other then eat yummy food, play backgammon, and dominoes.
(Clover)
From the moment we landed and settled into Luang Prabang Scott and I knew we were going to like this country. It's mellow, scenic, and very cheap. All great things to have line up for you when decreeing enough is enough.
Luang Prabang, Laos was a lovely little sleepy town. With old French colonial houses everywhere. The town is situated on a narrow peninsula with the huge Mekong River on one side and the smaller river Nam Khan on the other. They were both a muddy brown but it was a lovely site to behold none the less.
You could walk anywhere without fear of
Village girl sportin her new braclet.
We always try and throw them off by giving away things we've collected along the way, seems to work wonders on the kids. being run over. Crossing the street was never an issue 'cause the streets might as well have been the side walk. barely any traffic at all. Unlike many other cities and towns we had visited in S.E. Asia. We splurged and got ourselves a really nice guest house to stay at(it cost $25 a night but back home the same room would have gone for $150 if not more). Can't complain about that 😊 The room had a little balcony we could sit on while chatting and people watching the days away. While we were in Chiang Mai we bought a little Backgammon set and learn how to play.
There were many temples to visit in town but we only visited one, the name of course escapes me. As we were walking in quest of breakfast we walked by it and decided to take a look. There were only a few other gringos around. The place was almost deserted. Which after being at many crowded temples it was a refreshing change.
Just as we had lazed about Chiang Mai, we followed the same trend in Luang Prabang. It rained a little almost every day so the temperature was
very nice. Most days only consisted of reading and eating. Not a bad combo if you ask me and the food was amazing. Scott discovered Laap which is a very spicy dish and I enjoyed fresh spring rolls. But they weren't the spring rolls that are deep fried. Same basic ingredients but they are wrapped with softened bean paper then left unfried. I loved them. I will be making those when I get home.
Every evening a section of the main street would be closed off and small craft booths would pop up for a few hours. Most of the booths contained orderly little piles of pillows, quilts and little pouches of brilliantly coloured handcrafted reverse appliques.
The town would close down around ten or eleven every night as sleepy town usually do. Around that time was when Scott and I would wind our way back to our guest house to sit on our balcony and laze the rest of the night away playing Backgammon. Scott had the annoying habit of winning almost every game.
One of the local attractions of this area are the many waterfalls and caves. On the main street of town Tuk Tuks
Mekong River
The Mekong River does a very nice bend around Luang Prabang providing for lots of waterfront views. line the street waiting for a gringos to want to go to them. As you walk by they try to vie for your attention psssting you as you walk by. The town is so small that the only reason you would want to hire a tuk tuk is to go to one of these attractions. So they lounge around their tuk tuk trying to get as many people together to take out to the waterfalls.
We went to one of the waterfalls, but I made the bad decision to go by mini van, called Kouang Si. We could have had a nice airy tuk tuk to our selves but instead I chose to get packed into a tiny van with eight other smelly gringos for an hour long drive. We all make mistakes. I got the unhappy look from Scott to say the least.
The waterfall was worth it though. It wasn't anything I had imagine in my head. Most fresh water we have seen in S.E. Asia is a muddy opaque brown, with odd lumpish things sometimes floating around, and this was a vibrant powdery blue turquoise. The pools at the base of the pool were gorgeous.
The Cool Pools.
Gotta love that limestone. It made me wish we could stay there all day.
After Luang Prabang we caught another stinky gringo mini van to the town Vang Vieng. Which I might add was six hours of twisty turner tiny roads that threatens to make me blow chunks on everyone. Anyhoo, Vang Vieng was not anywhere as pretty as Luang Prabang but it had a completey different charm that both of us, as long term travellers, appreciated with much enthusiasm. And that would be bar/ restuarants that had tables that you could recline at and not only that, vegitate watching hours of "Friends" DVD's. This is where Scott would intercept and stay it was boring as hell and "Friends" is lame. But this is where I would interupt and say his blissful smile says is it all. Then he might try to say it was because he had a beer. And I would have to partly agree. Only partly though 😊
Without knowing it we had stumbled into the locals annual rocket festival. While lazing the hours away at our bar we started noting the increase of local traffic. Which translated to very drunken men carrying twenty foot long home made bottle
rockets on their shoulders. The first thing that sprung to mind was "only in Asia." If I tried to make one of those at home I would get tossed in jail for and endangerment and possibly terrorism. If I was caught that is. Huge groups of women walked by chanted and banging on pots and pans. A parade of elephants toting people back and forth wandering the streets. Basically it was chaos. And well...we had to follow the hub bub and see what it was all about.
Everyone was going down to the river where there was a huge wooden stand to prop the rockets on and blast them into the air. There wasn't very many gringos around which was an interesting change. It was mainly all locals having it up. Hundreds of people were on the river watching the rockets blast into the air. At first we thought maybe they were fireworks but no it was basically a black powder bomb strapped to a really long bamboo stick. It didn't even go boom in the sky. And when it was ignited, if it worked right, the bomb and the stick would hurdle hundreds of feet in the air
like a spear. The rocket launching "pad" was angled away from the crowd and over the river but there was no real guarantee that it would go the direction it was supposed to. One of the rockets wouldn't ignite and a guy kept climbing back up to light it up again. Finally it went off along with all of his hair. When he jumped of the launcher his head was smoking but looked unhurt. It was nuts.
Laos was wonderful. I loved Thailand because it was so mellow but Laos proved to be even more so. It was exactly what we needed. Every one was smily and friendly and the food was amazing. What struck me even more was the verticle limestone cliffs everywhere. It added to the exotic nature of the land. It made you want to find a place to sit down and stare for hours for the beauty of it all. Good bye Laos, until we meet again.
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Lucky Charms
Dave B
Wow Movies!
Nice movie. You guys have advanced to the video age of blog making! Very impressive. Ask Clover if I can interview her someday too! Keep up the good work! Are you guys getting tired yet? I just made it home and it feels good to be here. Take care and Be safe!