This place has always been on the map spiritually, as it has so many Wats in such a small area and is therefore teaming with monks. All of which wander through the town in a line at dawn to receive alms (gifts of food from local buddhists) We awoke first thing and our yawns were quickly stifled as we witnessed this rainbow of orange. A surreal and settling experience.
This wasn't our only surreal experience in Luang Prabang though. On our first day after growing tired of 'wat-ing' around we jumped in a jumbo to Kuang Si waterfalls. We arrived and to my delight there was a bear sanctuary you could visit as well!!! There were about 14 big fluffy sun bears that had been rescued from poachers or the like and were now happily in safety. You could tell they were from Laos as several were lounging in bear hammocks. Anyway back to the adventure, so Dan says 'let's walk to the top of the waterfall first then come down for a swim'. This led us to start on an ascent up the slippery slope through the forest. As we grow higher and walked towards the waterfall I grew less sure how much further we could go as there was no official viewing platform as I'd hoped. Instead the top of this 100(ish) foot waterfall was marked with a bamboo fence along the edge where the water rushed through it to begin its deep descent. Eagerly Dan then led me across the top of the waterfall, gripping onto the fence, walking through the water, the view was breathtaking but until we saw some other travellers coming across from the opposite direction I was convinced this wasn't what you were supposed to do up here. Maybe it wasn't, either way I felt inspired but relieved when we were finally swimming in the refreshing pools at the bottom.
There was more adventure on day two as we became mahouts for the day! This involved us spending our time at elephant village with their 14 nellies. All these elephants were previously slaves to labour and vital in the logging industry. This was until they started to be replaced by machines and their mahouts (handlers) were persuaded by the elephant village people that there is an alternative. These elephants now just have to put up with a few tourists a day and in return the eat their required 250kg of food a day and get to live as wildly as possible in their herd in the jungle. Once we learnt the commands a mahout uses, we got to do our first proper elephant ride (actually sitting bare backed on the elephants neck). It was definitely one of those 'I can't believe I'm doing this moments'. This was followed by several other elephant rides in various positions, and then we got to bathe our elephant. Riding an 3 metre high elephant down a steep bank and into a river, where the elephant then dips his head all the way under, plummeting you in too and continues to squirt you with its trunks is a brilliant experience. We were given brushes to scrub our elephants with but I'm not sure how much actual cleaning went on. Once the elephants were sorta clean we were taken by boat to see another waterfall where we could get ourselves clean. Less high than the other fall, but just as clear, Tad Sae also had its own elephants that you could swim with. It's seems when once this was the land of a million elephants it's now the land where elephants splash about with tourists. Our day out being a mahout had been well worth it, the elephant village seemed to really take care of its girls and it's defo a five star mahout experience with lush pool you can use too. The German owner also collects classic cars which you can see both at the village and dotted around town. So we headed back to town with giddy heads and tired legs.
Luang Prabang is another UNESCO town, unlike Hoi An (in Vietnam) it's much more French but just as pretty and romantic. One of its appealing features is its tranquil and colourful night market. We've been to loads of markets along this trip but this is the only one that we'd happily walk through time and time again. This could be because of the beautiful local handicrafts but the hands off no bother approach from the sellers is a breath of fresh Asia air too.
This town is designed to stroll around or sit in a cafe and watch the world go by. For dinner one night Dan had every Lao dish in one meal, including Mok Pa (steamed fish paste), Laap (Spicy mince chicken meat with onions and chilli), minced pork in Bamboo, river-weed (like seaweed but from the river, not as salty), Garlic Beef and a couple of other weird things, plus some very spicy chilli paste that made Dan screw his face up. But as we prefer to keep busy we paid a visit to the Big Brother Mouse book shop. This charity not only designs books that are in both English and Laotian, it puts on book parties in remote villages and twice a day opens its doors to anyone who wants to practice their English. As we are pretty good at english, we were welcomed in for the two hour session. As we sat and waited at the table alone we thought maybe no one wanted to practice today. Needless to say everyone else was just on Lao time and slowly around 20 others joined us. The studious were all male between the ages of 13 to 22 and as we all sat around the table chatting in twos or threes it was fantastic to see so many teenage boys eager to learn and improve. Craftily many also produced their English homework for us to 'help' with. However, I'm not sure I was much help to my confused looking new friend as we discussed why some words ending in 'ed' sound like t, some sound like d and others sound like ed, bizarre homework to set if you ask me teacher. Anyway, it was an exhausting yet rewarding few hours and Dan even made some new Facebook friends. Who I'm sure will be seeking him out to learn more slang sayings to write in their book of English idioms.
To sum up, Luang Prabang has everything you'd want from a place to visit and more. We had another exhausting yet exhilarating few days there, and it's with heavy hearts we say good bye. Not only because it's a great town but because we only have one more stop to make in lovely Laos - boo hiss boo.
So now we are up to date and as I write this we are going cross country and quite a bit North to Luang Nam Tha. Which is a protected area where we hope to do some jungle trekking. To get there though we are on another epic mini bus trip winding through the mountains, bumping over pot holes and covering our mouths from the red dust. For those discerning travellers, reading this for advice - this journey is no better than the one from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang, it's bumpier, longer, dustier and windier. Finally, then if this blog has been uploaded it means we have arrived safely and are settling into Nam Tha, so we'll see you again after a few days in the countryside.
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