So our 6 hr bus journey to Luang Prabang turned into 9 but we were used to that so wasn't much of an issue other than being very very hungry!!
We arrived at around 4 and made our way to our guesthouse (no one knew where it was so took a while) and it was actually really nice! It was owned by a man who didn't speak much English but he went out of his way to help us out.
The next day we made our way to the markets and spent the majority of our time shopping! The night market was especially good with everything being laid out on the floor and was just generally a really nice atmosphere. I spent a lot of time looking for a phone to replace mine which i somehow managed to misplace (im an idiot). After a good few hours we went back and called it a day.
The day after was in my opinion one of the best of the trip! We'd heard about a waterfall you could go swimming (kuang si falls) in and thought that's a definite so off we went! We haggled with a tuk tuk driver and managed to get it pretty cheap and off we went, we got there to find there was so much to do! We'd agreed 3 hours with our driver but really struggled to fit everything in! The waterfall was amazing and as it flowed down it created three big amazingly blue pools you could swim in which although we're very cold and filled with nibbling fish were so nice and we spent the majority of our time in them!
There was also a bear sanctuary there that housed over 25 neglected and mistreated bears which was nice to see! And we managed to get so close to them it was crazy! Emma bought a Tshirt and I got a shaggy green hat with SAVE THE BEARS!! on it! We were also going to visit a butterfly farm but we ran out of time :(
The next morning we decided to go climb a mountain/temple in the middle of town which is supposed to be amazing to watch the sunset however as we were walking up a storm blew in which although was pretty amazing to see we did get drenched! Luckily we had some bright blue ponchos to protect us!! (Cheers mum)
In the midst of the storm we were huddled behind the temple hiding Emma began a performance of 'it's raining men' rather loudly not knowing there was a big group of people around the corner 5ft away! Never seen her run so fast!!
Our last and final day consisted of us waking up at 4.30am because Emma really wanted to see 'the giving of the alms' which takes place in the town centre every morning at sunrise where the monks come from their temples to collect their food for the day from the locals! It was a very interested event to see take place then after a couple more hours sleep and checking out the rest of the day consisted of us getting carried away playing cards and scoffing our faces for 5 hours in a cafe while we waited for our bus to Thailand!!