Luang Prabang

The evening that we arrived we decided to not look for too long to get a guest house and just got one that we could have a good night rest and was cheap. The place that we ended up staying was a little too far out of town for us, so after a shower and a rest we walked into town and looked for a better place to stay and after an hour of looking we found one that we could afford and was in a really nice old part of the main town near to the night market. The guest house was also close to another guest house that a couple that we had met on the slow boat were staying and for a few nights in Luang Prabang we eat out with then and relaxed. They were a very interesting couple that were Dutch but had moved to Goa and now ran a bakery in north Goa where they sell their famous Dutch apple pie, they were some of life's really eccentrics and great fun to meet and I hope that they are well. If we ever go back to Goa then I think we will have to pop in to say hi.

Our first day in Luang Prabang we were woken by building noise because they were working next door so we were forced up and went to find a bakery for some coffee and breakfast and we found a place call Jomas which was very nice. For the rest of the day we explored the town looking at the temples, the main two are Wat Si Bun Heuang and Wat Pa Huak. Wat Si Bun Heuang is found at the end of the town and was really old and one of the most amazing temples I had seen, it was so so old and had a really chilled out feel to the place, the details in the buildings are amazing and they are so well maintained.Wat Pa Huak is situated on the main hill in the centre of Luang Prabang that is called Phu Si which was a bit of a climb but once at the top gave us some great views over the town and the Mekong, the temple was nothing amazing but still worth a look.

The following day we headed out of town on a trip to seen a local waterfall called Tat Kuang Si. Once at the falls we walked through a forest that the water ran trough and was very strange. The water had placed a calcium type deposit all over the forest floor and on the bottoms of the trees that you walked over and the water colour was a really light blue and the current was very strong because of all the rain that we come down. As we walked up and up we came to the main water fall and it was really flowing, the spry and wind coming from the falls was nearly enough to blow you over the spry would drench you. For a silly reason me and Anna climbed to the top of the falls that was very muddy and once at the top we could not see anything, so that was really worth it and the climb back down was not fun in just sandals. After a few hours we headed back to Luang Prabang for the evening, had some food by the river and went back to the hostel to pack our bags and get ready for the trip to Nong Khiaw in the north of Laos. Luang Prabang was an great place to stay for a few day but we both felt that it was not the really Laos because tourists had make their mark too much on the town, the main street was full of very posh restaurants and wine bars and not my idea of what Laos was about, we both hoped to fins the real Laos further on our travels in the contrary.