A walk along the Mekong River

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30 hours in a tight double sleeper bus took us across the Vietnam border and into Laos. As soon as we crossed lines we were welcomed with superb views of the never ending lush green mountain ranges, along with the never ended bendy road. We left ourselves high and dry again with no place to stay as we arrived in a city called Luang Prabang at 11pm. We were told, however, that we would be arriving 6 hours earlier and finding a place in broad daylight would have been a piece of cake. We had no such luck, as this city completely closed down at 10pm. Most places were already booked up, closed at reception, or out of our budget. It took us almost 2 hours of walking around the deserted streets aimlessly with Yvette, (a girl we became pretty close with on our 30 hour journey) until we found some other tourists who recommended the place they were staying at. It was a little budget guesthouse in a swanky hotel neighbourhood.

When we got there, it was all booked up as well, unless, we wanted to go upstairs, knock on someone's door and ask if she wouldn't mind 3 extra room mates in her room that had two double beds. As awkward as it was, Yvette took one for the team and headed on up. Coincidentally enough, the sweet young lady in the room also happened to be from Holland and was hoping to make some friends to brighten up her evening! At last, our now 32 hours of travel was officially over.




The next morning we woke up fresh and ready to explore Luang Prabang. The two of us and Yvette set out on a long walk around the town in the scorching heat. We let ourselves get lost on the small, hilly streets. At one point we walked across a rickety bridge and found ourselves outside of the touristy area where we could see the locals in their true fashion, enjoying a beautiful weekend afternoon. We had some super spicy and super vinegary local food alongside the Mekong River while enjoying the great company and scenery.

At night we set out to the main strip street market, checking out the local handcrafts and souvenirs. We then hit the town's famous 10,000 kip ($1.50) street buffet and filled up our plates with as much delicious vegetarian food as we could carry.




Another new day led us to the Kuang Si falls 29 kms outside of town. It's a 3 tier waterfall, the tallest cascading from 60 meters up. The grounds held various pools of crystal blue mountain water, one which was blocked off from swimming privileges as it is said to be sacred.  They also held a black bear sanctuary where they save and protect the bears. We were able to make it there just in time to watch the bears at feeding time.

We took an hour hike there, through the jungle to the top of the waterfall. Unfortunately the view from the top was pretty anticlimactic, but there's something incredibly exhilarating about trekking through moody terrain and sweating out the gallons of water you drink while doing it. Alice paid the price for doing it in her open toe hiking shoes as she was a little heavier when she got back down with a nice sized leech attached to the back of her muddy foot. Gross! We spent the rest of the afternoon indulging in the pools, swimming, fall jumping and Tarzan swinging from great heights.

Back in town we walked up 600 stairs to watch the sunset at a temple overlooking the entire town, with views of the Mekong river running through it. We then went for drinks at a great outdoor restaurant called Lao Lao Garden with Yvette and some new friends we met back at our guesthouse. It was impossible to turn down the "$10 for a bottle of whiskey and 3 cokes" deal, and ended up drinking way to much over the few hours we spent there.



 We ended up at Utopia, another popular touristy bar at the end of the night. Not even realizing what day of the month or week it was, we walked into the bar and saw people wearing Canadian flags all over the place. At first we thought there just happened to be a lot of Canadians in town, and then we realized, we were all gathered there for a reason. It was Canada Day (yes, we're that far behind on our blog)! In a drunken stupor we walked back to our place talking and laughing, and we almost missed a real live scorpion, yes a SCORPION, walking down the street!

The next morning we were regretting all the drinking we had done the night before as we woke up what seemed like only a couple of hours later to get on another mountainous drive to our next destination. You can probably imagine how lovely our bendy drive was with our head banging hangovers, but thankfully it was only 5 hours and we were in Vang Vien. Interestingly enough, the only thing to do in this tiny little town in the middle of the mountains is to rent a tube and go tubing from bar to bar along the river (although last year 90 % of the bars were closed as something like 30 people were dying every year from this practice). We can tell you that we never ended up touching anymore alcohol for the rest of our time in Laos. We did meet a couple of wonderful girls from London though, and ended up having a nice dinner with them and then spent the next two days recovering from our big night out, as we clearly can't drink like we could in our 20's!

Our last big journey brought us back to crazy Bangkok to catch a flight to India, which you'll need to get your stomachs ready for in the next blog.

Keep on keepin up!
With love from Bangkok, our home away from home,

D'Alice