Amazing waterfalls

Day 51 (20/05/08): Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang is a very pretty town, full of history and culture, and more temples than you can shake a big Buddhist stick at. One of the things the town is famous for is the Kuang Si waterfalls, and so after a breakfast with Garth, Gemma & Johnny, the four of us grabbed a tuk-tuk for the hour journey out the waterfalls. Its only 29km to the waterfall, but it is very steep, and as such the underpowered tuk-tuks take an hour to get there.

Before getting to the waterfalls, you walk through a short forest path, in which you go past the Bear Conservation project. Here are a number of Asiatic black bears that have been rescued from poachers. The bears were all playing in their enclosures, and climbing trees, and were pretty cool to see. There is also a rescued tiger, however it wasn't out for viewing that day. Walking a bit further we came to the waterfalls themselves. The waterfalls are incredibly beautiful. It is actually a series of small waterfalls that cascade over multiple levels down the side the hill into beautiful aquamarine pools. We followed them up, marvelling as each pool seemed more beautiful and picturesque than the previous one. After a short while we got to the main fall, which was pretty high and very pretty. Here we met Lucy and Lou & Charlie, three other Gibboners who had taken the bus instead of the slow boat.

You are allowed to swim in the pools at the bottom of the hill, and so after working up some sweat walking to the top of the waterfall, we were all eager for a swim. There is a small waterfall here, about 3m high which you can jump off, as well as a tree of similar height overhanging the pool. We all had a great time jumping off the waterfall and tree into the beautiful water. At one stage a large contingent of young orange clad monks appeared and walked to the top of the waterfall. Some started rolling up their robes, and we were all hoping they would jump, but alas a senior monk came along and disavowed them of the idea.

The tuk-tuk ride back was considerably quicker, an advantage of going downhill. Later in the evening I met Lou and Charlie, and we climbed over 200 steps up the large hill in the middle of Luang Prabang to watch the sunset. Unfortunately the clouds were in the way, but it was still a fantastic view watching over the town as all the lights came on for the night, and as is typical for Laos, there were fantastic mountains and cliffs in the background. Luang Prabang has a large number of Buddhist temples, which at night are lit up by spotlights, and so standing on top of a giant hill in the center of the town, you could see all the illuminated Buddhist Stupas dotted around the place.

Lou and Charlie hadn't made it to the bowling alley the previous night, and were quite keen to go, and so for the second night in a row I found myself at the bowling alley after dinner. Garth joined us, and the four of us had a couple good games. I was really bad in the first game, coming dead last and scoring a paltry 35. But then I got my eye in, and easily won the second game with a score of 115. Overall another fun night with the 'Gibbon Crew'.

Two days on a slow boat

Days 49-50 (18/05/08 - 19/05/08): Huay Xai to Pakbeng to Luang Prabang

There were six of us 'Gibboners' catching the slow boat to Luang Prabang; myself, Joe and Justin from my treehouse, Gemma and Johnny (an English couple) and Garth, the Canadian. We got to the boat really early in order to grab good seats, and we quickly camped ourselves out near the front of the boat, each with our own seat. The boat is just a long wooden boat with open sides and a roof, with rows of wooden benches down it. The boat ride was actually quite good fun, the seats were simple wooden benches, but on some advice we had each bought a small cushion. We spent the time reading, listening to music, chatting, playing cards or a great little game called 'Pass the Pigs'. In the afternoon we even cracked open a few beers and relaxed as we watched the Laos countryside drift by. The boat goes down the famous Mekong river, and as such it was my first time on the river that I would be spending a lot of time on in the future, as I follow it down through Laos, Cambodia and then into Vietnam. It was also the first time in my trip that I was heading South. I have spent the last six weeks travelling North from Singapore, through Malaysia right into the North of Thailand, and now I am heading south again, and will be for the next few weeks.

The boat stops at a small town called Pakbeng, whose sole purpose is to house the tourists coming down on the boat. As such there is a large crowd of guesthouse touts waiting to ambush you as you come off the boat. We all checked in to a relatively cheap guesthouse, had an average curry for dinner, and spent the evening drinking a few beers and playing Pass the Pigs. Until 10:30pm, when the generators for the town stop and it loses all electricity.

We arrived at the boat early the next day again, and so ensured that we had good seats at the front of the boat (the back of the boat is very noisy from the big engine). The second day was very similiar to the first, with the exception that it rained a fair bit, so canvas covers were pulled over the side of the boat to stop the rain coming in. Once again we entertained ourselves with games and cards, and had a few beers.

We arrived in Luang Prabang, where Joe and Justin were meeting a bunch of friends. They were waiting at the jetty for us, and we followed them to their guesthouse and all booked in together. I continued to share a room with Garth, like we had been doing for the past few days. Luang Prabang is quite famous, the entire town is a Unesco World Heritage site, and it is home to a large number of temples and a lot of monks. In fact if you walk outside a temple just before dark, you will see a large number of orange clad monks leaving. It is even weirder to pass by an internet cafe and see all the young monks checking their email and texting on their cellphones. Nevertheless, the town, like most of Laos, is very conservative and most restaurants and bars will shut at the curfew of 11pm. There are only two places in town that stay open after this, the disco and the bowling alley. And so on our first night in Luang Prabang, we all found ourselves going to the bowling alley after our dinner. The bowling alley was apparently the place to be, and very shortly the entire place was packed, almost entirely with backpackers, a lot of whom I recognised from the boat trip. I didn't actually end up bowling, I just drank some beers and chatted to other people.

At the end of the night, a large group of us were all going back to the same guesthouse, and so we all got on the same tuk-tuk, all 17 of us (bear in mind this was a 'truck' style tuk-tuk, with two benches in the back of a small converted van). Nevertheless, there were 9 in the back, 3 on the roof, 3 standing on the duckboard at the back, and 2 in the front. It was a lot of fun, and since the tuk-tuk only had a 1400cc engine, we were going so slow that it was pretty safe.