Typical street in Luang Prabang
We arrived at Luang Prabang and easily found a lovely guest house with clean wood-panelled rooms and a (relatively) soft and comfy bed. Day one consisted of wandering around the city and getting our bearings. Well, I say city but Luang Prabang has the feel of a provincial French town: all low rise buildings in a generic European style architecture - lots of verandas and shuttered windows, all with an asian twist - tuk tuks, scooters and plenty of building going on.
LP is known for having tons of Wats (temples) and there are monks constantly wandering around. Apparently every man in Laos has to be a monk for at least 3 months (kinda like Buddhist National Service) so they are a firm fixture of the surroundings. We did see one monk sitting in the Wat in quiet contemplation - then we realised he was listening to his i-pod and the mysticism was somewhat reduced!!
After being woken up by our next door neighbour sanding wood panels for their new extension at 7 bloody am, we had a lazy breakfast of coffee and croissants before heading to a nearby waterfall. We followed the first few pools up and thought it was picturesque then rounded a corner to be confronted by a huge and beautiful waterfall of dizzying heights with a treacherous path up the side which we obviously HAD to climb. The very top was a bit of a disappointment but the first tier - about 10 metres below the top had an idyllic infinity pool with a lip that allowed you to peer over the edge down the 4 or 5 tiers below while cooling off in the water and with a stunning view of Laos mountains as a backdrop.
El jumps into pool after much trepidation amid fears she'll lose her bikini
El and Carolin at Kuang Si waterfall near Luang Prabang - not for those with vertigo
We ended the day with a cosy dinner then heading out to the only place in Luang Prabang open after 11pm - the bowling alley. Sadly it was nowhere near as fun as Koh Tao (which had Burmese guys crouching at the end of the lane to set up your pins again) but nevertheless we had fun pitching our bowling prowess against each other.
Day 3 said goodbye to Carolin as we hired some bicycles and got a ferry across the Mekong river to look at a Wat set in a limestone cliff that we'd read about, where old and broken statues of Buddha are taken (they are still considered powerful and not to be thrown away). The broken statues were a bit sad but the cave was incredibly dark. The old dude who let us in did give us torches but about a 3rd of the way down we got scared and had to go back to the top. It was pissing down with rain so we shared a plain wooden shelter with our dude and his mate and a couple of monks until the weather improved.
We still had an hour left before our boat back across the river so we cycled inland a little to a small village 2.5km up the road. It doesn't sound very far but go more than 5 minutes away from the town centre and the tarmac gives out and at best the road is compacted stones, at worse a muddy quagmire. We stopped at the village shop and ordered some noodle soup from the proprietor who got her daughter to pick 4 mangoes from their mango tree and served us free, just-picked mango and taught us some Laos phrases. The noodle soup was delicious (and El just picked out the lumps of meat with a smile) and we marvelled at how just a few clicks away from a major city in Laos you can find fairly authentic Laos life. Yes they did still have satellite TV in the background but there was no pretence at being "ethnic" for the tourists, and the kids ran around playing games and riding bikes rather than selling us tacky bracelets and begging for dollars.
It made us love this country even more and decided to hire some more bikes again so we can do a bit of our own exploring. Laos people are incredibly friendly and helpful and the country (what we've seen of it so far) throws stunningly rugged and yet serene mountains vistas that make your senses reel. We will be heading north in the next few days further into the mountain territory to get our fill of mountains before heading to the much flatter south next week.
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