I got to Luang Prabang on a very long bus ride from Vientiane. I knew it was going to be long, but I didn’t realise it was going to be as long as it was, which about about 11 or 12 hours. We arrived in Luang Prabang in the dark and I managed to negotiate a tuk-tuk and a room in a guest house not long after.
The journey to Luang Prabang was pretty spectacular, with steep mountain sides, sheer drops and magnificent scenery. The road was very windy, passing through many small villages, which, surprisingly, were totally un-developed. Local, minority people were living there and I would have liked to explore them a bit more thoroughly, had I had the time.
Luang Prabang was a lot more touristy then I was expecting and it was difficult finding somewhere to eat. I finally found a ‘charge-per-plate’ type market stall where they charged me 10 000 Kip per plate of food, which is about 1.5 US Dollars. They even threw in some prawn crackers with the second plate.
The next day I started out by trying to gather information on where to go next. I decided that I was going to go to Luang Nam Tha, but that I would stay in Luang Prabang for a few days, as I did want to see some of it. I spent the rest of the day walking around and crossing various bridges, one bamboo (which gets re-built once it is washed-away in the wet season) and one industrial, with a long drop down to the river.
The day after I got up early to watch the monks’ alms. This is where Buddhist believers line up and place sticky rice in the food bowls of passing monks, who also pass in a long line. It is a very peaceful process, but where I was got swamped with Korean and Chinese tourists not long after the procession started, so I had to wander around to find somewhere quieter, which I managed to do just as the last monks were passing by. Later on, I crossed the Mekong River and went on a short walk past a load of temples (wats) and then through a village, Ban Nakham. Here, I got welcomed in to someone’s house, as they were clearing up after a wedding. I got given noodle soup and a vegetarian salad, which tasted like it had salad cream on it, but there was a misunderstanding about how many beers I would buy them and they ended up buying 6 beers with the money I gave them and not 2. We took the beers back to the shop, where the woman realised there was a white person buying them and refunded me 8 000 Kip for the 4 beers but charged me 10 000 Kip for the 2 I was giving away. As there was already 2 000 Kip which the man had supposedly already given me, I got less change then I was anticipating and decided to let them keep the 2 000 Kip, so that I didn’t have to go back into the house to get it. Walking back, I think they felt bad about this, as the man selling ice-creams was sent back on his motorbike to get me a give me a lift to Ban Xieng Mene, where the boats left from.
Once back in Luang Prabang, I decided to do one more thing and visit Kuang Si waterfall. Without a guidebook, I had only heard about this and seen one or two pictures, but I managed to find a tuk-tuk driver who would take me there for a reasonable price. We got in for free (as he was local) and he showed me around, which he didn’t have to do. In the end, it was totally deserted, with me and my taxi-driver swimming in one of the pools of the waterfall with the sun going down. I remember laughing, as this was one of the amazing points in my trip, which happen only occasionally.