After seeing a few local buses broken down, we decided to take one of the many 6 hour minibuses to Luang Prabang as suggested by others who had experienced the winding journey! Thankfully I managed to get a seat next to the driver but Ads and Zach, bearing in mind they are both almost or over 6 foot, got rammed in the back seats and the journey became a pretty painful experience!!! Heading away from Vang Vien north and into the mountains, this journey was without doubt the most beautiful and stunning bus journey we have done to date! The limestone mountains all around us were huge as we drove through the valley, it was simply breathtaking! As we started to wind up the mountains around many twists and turns, we started to see slightly more of the poverty that existed in the mountain villages. Children filthy playing in the mud, but happy, old weary women of about 70 heavily laden with fire wood in baskets on their backs as they slowly walked the steep ascent home....Just incredible people, still smiling though with their red teeth stained from chewing melon seeds! The mountain villages consisted mainly of one simple row of shacks perched on stilts on the side of the road with the back of the houses falling off the side of the mountain - amazing how they crammed villages into such small spaces, you definitely wouldn't want to accidentally sleep walk out of your back door though!! Children of about 4 or 5 carried their baby sisters/brothers on their backs, amongst traffic jams of pigs, hens, chickens, dogs, puppies and any other livestock wandering around! As we climbed higher the views down the valleys were even more magnificent......I saw so many amazing photo moments that I missed, old ladies crowded around the fire chatting, children playfully making the day pass by with the mountains behind....Laos is truly a beautiful country and yet another contrast to the scenery seen so far in Asia. Our first stop consisted of Adam and Zach having to be helped out of the bus as basically every joint in their bodies had given up through lack of space! Then, followed by stale bread and cheese served by a heavily pregnant lady, we made sure we made a wiser choice at the next stop of egg friend rice! Amanda became the amusement of an old thai man on our bus who seemed to like her quite a lot and asked his wife to take their picture together - Amanda did he ever send you that copy you asked for, ha ha! Continuing on we passed many of the local ways of life with which they earned a living, women and children collecting bamboo ferns then hitting them ******* the road to make them ready to sell at market as brooms - the effort and hardship put into making a simple household implement that would make next to nothing in money was a huge eye opener..... The journey was definitely one I won't forget for a long time. We arrived at Luang Prabang after peeling Ads and Zach out of the bus and as usual had been dropped at a bus station miles out of town! After much confusion over the cost of a tuk tuk we arrived in town and myself and Amanda went on accommodation hunt! As you would expect of girls, this took an age, but we finally found a cool swiss style chalet guest house, definitely not what I expected in Laos at all! We then walked down to the Mekong and watched the sunset on the river whilst fishing boats were passing by, temples were looming in the distance and monks were crossing the river bridge, it was just beautiful! Clambering along the banks we then headed into town to the Unesco World Heritage Site that is Luang Prabang! Despite being quite touristy it was just picturesque, swiss/French style colonial buildings, heaps of restaurants, temples and gorgeous night markets selling every handicraft and meats (don't ask!) you could wish for, and in amongst it all, hundreds of monks carrying on their daily duties and wandering around the town. We were still taken a back that this was Laos, so much beauty and charm, poverty really wasn't apparent at all here...... We treated ourselves to a red wine, which unfortunately had been put in a freezer I think so was the coldest we had ever tasted! We definitely needed it (or Amanda did! )after I had persuaded her to buy a cool 'hot man wanted' t-shirt we had seen whilst doing what the boys hated, shopping! The entire place closes down at 10 so an early night was had by all, ready to be templed out the next day! The morning started off with a visit to the infamous 'JO MA' bakery up the road from us! Fellow Laos travellers will know it well for its amazing bagels, fresh meat, homemade muffins, chilled jazz and leather sofas, plus very large cappuccino's! It has a very French artistic feel inside and wouldn't be out of place anywhere in NY or London, so it seemed very weird again that we were actually still in Laos.... Ads of course had 2 sandwiches, budget blown already and we hadn't gone anywhere! It was a boiling day so exploring Luang Prabang was cool but tiring in the heat. First we got a boat across the Mekong to see the older Wats on the other side - these were not restored and crumbling in places but to me that makes them all the more beautiful and the view down the Mekong and across the river was fantastic. On getting off our little long boat, the sand was boiling so it was a fast run to dry land to see the MANY steps up to the first temple - Wat Chom Phet. On paying our entrance fee, 3 young local children joined us and during broken English described the 4 of us as 3 beautiful people plus 1 monkey, got no idea who the monkey was??! He was not amused! We then walked north to Wat Khun and onto Wat Than Xieng Maen, the latter is based in a limestone cave 100m deep, needless to say I stayed outside! 3 local boys then joined me and to their amusement play and fought round the cave gates, accidentally on purpose shutting them, which for those inside was probably not very funny! They then decided that they wanted to see how many flowers they could place in my hair, plus spiders, so once the rest of the group returned very hot and sweaty out of their deep hole, I was sat looking stupid like a flower girl! By now we were all bust so our trusty long boat man picked us back up and another café was sought! We read how the owner, an American had set up the coffee plantation to help the Laos locals who, after the government banned the growing of opium, basically had no money or livelihood and this hence gave them a trade. We then tried the palace which had just shut so wandered around whilst a group of Japanese were taking photos of them jumping in front of the palace........45 minutes later they were STILL going, how many photos?? Moving onto Wat Xien Thong, this was built in the 1560's and was the royal residence until 1975 - it had many temples and gold buddha's and would have been enjoyable if my stomach hadn't decided to give up on me and I quickly had to use the monk's amenities for a while, ooops! On waiting for me a young monk asked Ads if we would teach him some English for the evening which would have been fantastic if we had had the time but unfortunately we couldn't. Amanda then fully watted out and suffering from a bad neck retired back to bed whilst the 3 of us climbed the 100m high steps of Wat Phusi to watch the sunset over Luang Prabang.......unfortunately at the top, so had EVERY other tourist! It was like having ring seats for the best spot so we enjoyed the view of Wat Wisunalit - a huge gold, beautiful temple, the oldest operating in Laos seen in the distance, saw abit of sunset then headed swiftly down before the rush! That evening we decided to save money and eat with the locals at the market. The meat on offer consisted of every animal body part - intestine, buffalo brain, pigs head, trotters, you name it, at this point myself and Amanda went vegetarian!!! Ads had the largest sausage (we think) ever seen which was really tasty and we sat down with our bowls of vegetarian delights (plus a few cats on the table) with a beer. It had set us back more than we thought so after soaking up the atmosphere from a short walk we headed home very skint! Our final day saw us opting to see a waterfall 20km south of town, there is so much biking, kayaking, caving and trekking to do here, we definitely want to come back but for now chose the NP. Amanda's neck was so bad that she needed to find a doctor for the day, after we had all of course visited......the bakery! After another bargaining session for a tuk tuk the 3 of us headed out of town, it was cool to start to see the real villages of Luang Prabang, wooden shacks, glimpses of the Mekong & vast forested woodland. At the Khang Si waterfall we stopped at a bear sanctuary funded by an Oz charity to save bears that were being used for the illegal trading of 'bear bile' used in chiinese medicine. They were called 'Moon Bears' and were only small with a white V on their necks. Watching them was very very funny, some slept in the most bizarre positions, others play fought in the water, whilst one climbed a tree then proceeded to wee on his mate below (who didn't appear to mind!), then another one in the next area was madly determined to ruin any bamboo climbing tower the keepers had made! He attempted everything, tugging it, pulling it, jumping from a high height, you name it, and he fell off so many times, we must have watched them for about an hour without realising, they were hilarious! Next was 'Phet' a beautiful endangered tiger who to had been brought here funded by a UK charity this time as she was in such a horrific way....She was fast asleep but had beautiful markings, a far cry now from the photo of when they found her at 7 mnths old. We then hiked up to the waterfall which consisted of many layers of beautiful turquoise lagoons on route, from which we clambered up the right side of the waterfall which was pretty muddy and steep but the views across the mountains from the top were stunning! At the top we saw an amazing perfect line Ants trail across this log and on following it, it went on for miles into the distance up a huge tree, I have never seen anything like it! Zach decided to add confusion to the trail and split it, at this point hundreds of ants backed up not knowing what to do, before an eventual reunion. We then clambered back down the waterfall, passed the bears to see if they had trashed the place yet to find their attempts had been quashed as the keeper had fixed the furniture again, boo! After trying a local man's family recipe dumpling, we headed back via a bizarre pigeon fuelled drive on my part (must have been tired!) to find Amanda better again and actually being able to move her neck again after finding acupuncture! That eve we watched the footie cup final then ran back to the hotel to beat the 12pm curfew!