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Somewhat knackered, we arrived in Luang Prabang in late afternoon. We quickly bumped into Sam and Rauli, two people who Ali had met earlier in her trip. Ali, Vandi and I found a cheap and cheerful guest house, washed the grime of the trip away and treated ourselves to an expensive meal.

Looking up at Wat Xieng Thong

Looking down from Wat Xieng Thong

The next day, I went walk about. Luang Prabang is dominated by Wat Xieng Thong, so as early as I could muster (which admittedly wasn't really that early), I climbed the steps to have a closer look and a look at the town from above. I wasn't expecting too much, most of Northern Laos had been covered in haze during the boat trip, the result of slash and burn harvesting, and so the view from the top of the Wat was fairly murky. Rather than walk back along the main road, I went along a back route nearer the river. This was mostly tourist-free.

Making sugar cane juice

Another wat

In one of the other Wats I ran into an Australian couple who had been on the boat. This repeated itself several times for the rest of the trip - I met people who had been on the boat or people who I'd met somewhere else because they were with people on the boat.

In the afternoon I got on a boat across the river. As I approached the river various people offered to hire a boat to me and take me to various temples on the other side. I'd read that it was possible to take a water taxi across along with the locals, so I decided to try this first.

Cross-river transport in Luang Prabang

Crossing the river

The crossing took about 5 minutes and then I seemed to be well of the beaten track. I didn't come across any other tourists, just villagers going about their business. The television aerials made it obvious that this wasn't particularly primitive, but it was still nice to get away from the westerners for an hour or so.

Water buffalo cooling off

That evening we made good use of an excellent Indian restaurant.

A gang of us in a tuk tuk

Independently, two groups of us had decided to go to the local waterfalls. There were about five of us in our tuk tuk, and maybe a few more in the other one.

On the way there we were periodically ambushed as we passed through villages, mostly with buckets of water. The driver was keeping a steady speed, so he also got hit. We were a little damp by the time we arrived, but not overly so.

We met the other group at the waterfall, and stripped off to our swimming gear and lounged around in the water for a while, occasionally swimming up to the rocks to try and get inside the waterfall.

Vandi, Ali, Rauli and Sam at Kuang Si falls

A monk contemplates the falls

We climbed up the waterfall, walked over the top and climbed back down again, then wandered back to the tuk tuk point to get some water and some snacks, and to haggle with the local T-shirt sellers.

Monks at Kuang Si falls

On the way back we decided to use some of our drinking water as a weapon, but there was far too little of it to be effective. The driver meanwhile was being clever - every time he spotted an ambush he would slow down, allowing the attackers to aim carefully for the back of the tuk tuk. The result was that we got soaked, while he stayed dry.

After drying out a little we went for something to eat and met up with some other people from our boat, plus some more people that Ali new from Thailand, in a restaurant that must be a contender for having the worst service in Laos.

The war has begun

Afterwards we repaired over the road for a beer or two and some Lao Lao. This is the Laos liqueur, and has a similar effect to tequila. Likewise, it is more of a skulling drink than a sipping drink, so we skulled them. Sam immediately threw hers straight back up.

Luang Prabang bus station

Ali had not been well, so she was staying in Luang Prabang a little longer. Vandi was going to the north to visit the plain of Jars. I decided I had seen everything that I wanted to and so the next morning I got the bus south to Vang Vieng. I got the same tuk tuk driver as we'd been to the waterfall with to take me to the bus station (right). The bus pictured is the bus we took, which came as some relief because the one next to it was even more ramshackle.

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Last modified on 22nd December 2007 3:31 PM EST

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