The dropoff at Luang Prabang was a litte more civilised than the one at Pak Beng. It was still daylight, which helped, and Andy, Louise and I managed to grab our rucksacks out of the hold before getting off the boat. Heading up from the docks we managed to repel most of the guesthouse touts, only falling at the last hurdle and accepting the offer to stay at the Chansavang guesthouse. A quick tuk-tuk ride, along with a mother and child who had apparently been travelling for a year (not sure how the child’s being schooled…), and we were there. The room was nice enough, the staff were friendly and the guesthouse was open all night.
On the first night there, the three of us went out and had a look around the Hmong (hill tribe people) night market. Lots of clothes and general trinkets were on offer, nothing appealed to me really. Louise and I then went to dinner, while Andy went back to the hostel with a stomach ache. The meal was nice enough – Louise got a rice wine, which actually turned out to be very tasty.
On the way out of the restaurant, Louise was going to head back to the hostel, and I fancied a night out. We bumped into Anja again, who’d been eating at the same place, so I joined her. This was at about 7:00, and she’d arranged to meet up with another bunch of people at 8:00, so we wandered around the various travel agents looking at the tours that were on offer. We had this idea we might do a 2 day tour if Andy was up to/for it. At 8:00 we wandered back to the Cafe d’Art and bumped into Louise again, just coming out of an internet cafe, so she joined us for drinks. The rice wine at the Cafe d’Art wasn’t nearly as good. Eventually Olle and Annelien joined us for drinks. We moved on to Lao Lao Garden and Louise left us.
I guess we arrived at Lao Lao Garden at 11:00, only to find it was closing at 11:30. I’m not sure if this is true across the whole of Laos, but certainly in Luang Prabang they have a curfew where everyone is meant to be in their hostel by midnight. Anja and Anna made the mistake of leaving it to me and Ole to order beers, so after considering the various prices, we decided the most cost-efficient option was to get a tower. A tower is basically a big 3 litre container of beer with ice down the middle to keep it cool and a tap. Let’s just say the girls weren’t too impressed that, with 20 minutes left, we had a pint and a half each to drink, so they invited a couple on the next table – Ben and Johanna to join us. It turned out these two had bought bicycles at the Laos border, cycled from there and planned to cycle all the way through Laos. Unsurprisingly they were German… 
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At 11:30 we were ushered out by the staff, who gave us plastic cups to put the remaining beer in. At this point in Luang Prabang the only place open that serves beer until later is the bowling alley. This is open until 3:00am, so, as that’s where everyone goes, that’s where we all went. My bowling skills aren’t up to much at the best of times – apparently they get even worse after a few drinks. I believe I nearly won the first game, but by the end my skills were declining whereas Olle was only getting better.
The following day we’d arranged to meet up with a load of other people at the Cafe d’Art at 12:00 to go and visit the Kuang Si waterfall. Naturally Andy and I were late, arriving at 12:30. Anja had also been late (surprising for a German), having arrived at 12:15 to find everyone had gone. Anyway when we turned up her and Anna(?) had just decided to share a tuk-tuk with Cole from the minibus/slow boat and a couple of his friends, so we bundled in with them. The tuk-tuk was going to charge 30,000 kip (about $3) each to take us to the waterfall, wait for us to visit and take us back to Luang Prabang. Not a bad deal, considering it’s a long way away, although he must have been loving the fact that there were so many of us. I think the deal had been negotiated for 4-5 people rather than 7.
The waterfalls were beautiful. There’s a bit at the bottom where you can swim about, and you can walk right up to the top, which is quite a climb, but definitely worth it. In the swimming areas though there seemed to be some kind of biting fish. Nothing serious, but a little irritating. They didn’t get you if you kept moving. I believe there’s a monastery around there, as there’s a lot of monks wandering around. It’s certainly a very peaceful location! Good for meditating. At the bottom we found a big rock in front of the waterfall to pose on. Sadly I forgot to take my camera that day, so I’m waiting for Andy to upload his photos. Sorry guys!
In the evening we all met up – Me, Jean, Olle, Andy, Maia, Barb, Anna and Anja (in order of appearance in the group photo) for drinks and pizza at the Cafe d’Art for a few drinks. No bowling tonight.
The next day we’d decided to do some kayaking. We decided to do a one day tour instead of a two day in the end, so the kayaking was to take in the Tak Sai waterfalls (not to go over them). After the minibus collected us all and another couple – Matt and Stefania – and picked up the kayaks from some obscure location – it seemed to be someone’s house and there was a woman weaving outside, although they didn’t seem to be trying to sell us anything – we headed on down to the river. The kayaks were mostly two-man, so it was Andy and I in one, Anja and Anna, Matt and Stefania in the others and Olle in his own one, plus the two tour guides. We got in the river, paddled for about 10 minutes and arrived at the waterfall. Perfect timing for a 2 hour break…. These were also beautiful, and had many more areas where you could swim without any biting fish. There’s also a zip-wire trail up there, but we didn’t do it as it was horrifically expensive. We did another trek around instead, lost Olle and ended up climbing down a rope ladder through small hole. After a bit we found ourselves back at the start, and the guides wanted us to have lunch. Anna went off to find Olle, and eventually succeeded. After lunch it was back on the kayaks.
This time we kayaked for about four hours. It was great fun, took in some very simple rapids, and a couple of slightly more exciting ones. You had to be careful where you put the boat to avoid the rocks on these. There was splashing aplenty, and Andy and I had a race against the guides. Surprisingly they won and we still owe them a beer.
I’d say the kayaking was over all too quickly, but in fact we were all exhausted by then.
That night Andy, Anja, Olle, Anna and I went out for a Lao-style barbeque. Basically they put a big barbeque on the table with a load of ingredients, they give you a quick demonstration of what to do, and you cook the rest yourself. Anna left sometime after the barbeque and the rest of us went bowling. Another good night!
On our last day Anja was feeling pretty sick and Olle hung-over, so Andy and I met up to walk the temples in town. After a quick stop for coffees, Olle turned up to join us. He was just in time to visit the Royal Palace, home of the apparently famous Phra Bang buddha statue, after which the town is named. A few temples later and we were templed out. We met up with Anja in the l’Etranger bookshop, but she was still sick and left soon after. The rest of us climbed the hill to the Phou Si stupa, which was supposed to be a great place to watch the sunset. Judging by the crowds that were there to watch, this piece of news had got around everyone, and so it wasn’t such a great place to watch it. Still, I got some good photos.
That evening Andy took his laptop to l’Etranger (free wi-fi!) and we watched Yesman upstairs. The next day we’d be heading to Vang Vieng to do some tubing!
