Luang Prabang is a city by the Mekong River, an UNESCO heritage site. It's quite expensive but a nice city. We spent a great few days there with our new minivan/boat friends Luke & Josh.

We stayed in the first place a man offered us, showing us pictures on a placard. Dropped our stuff off and headed out to the backpacker bar Utopia. "Zen by day Groovy by night" a good bar for a few bevs and dinner.

We spent a day at a beautiful waterfall Kuang Si with a rope swing and turquoise freezing cold water. We ran into some of the other brits from the boat, Newcastle couple Candice & Michael, near bolton friends Shelley & Adam and Belfast bred Paul (from Anderson's Town where dads born and raised). Swam in the pools of water and watched the boys jump off the rocks and saw some black bears mating.

That night started chilled playing cards then into a drunken fun night of bowling. I drank fish bowl glasses of wine, mojitos and then later Lao whiskey naughty. We met up with the guys from the waterfall and Luke and Josh's mate Tom (British/French) and went bowling in a mafia owned bowling alley that was the only place to drink after the 11:30pm curfew (Laos people have to be home by 12am by law).

Hangover day of eating and a weird steam room experience. 10,000 kip for a steam in a very herbal steamy wooden box. Men and women were separated, as I walked through the door a woman was standing on the bench with a white towel over her face, freaked me out! Walked to the temple on the hill and watched most beautiful sunset (cutting it fine), then back down into a vibrant night market. We had a cheap dinner in a food alley with the biggest pieces of BBQ meat and fish on sticks I'd ever seen! Dreams!

The next day we said bye to the boys and went on a day trip. Elephant riding, whiskey village and Buddha caves. Neil hated the elephant riding but loved feeding them bananas. The ride felt very bumpy and not very fair to the elephants but they seemed well looked after. The camp was based in a very scenic location by the river where they could bathe. The boat ride along the Mekong river to the Buddha caves was beautiful, our boat felt like it could barely fight against the current. Our tour guide sent us home in a tuk tuk along very dusty roads as we only signed up for the half day.

Luang Prabang had a great night market and some beautiful places to visit in and around it. We missed a couple of pretty waterfalls but we ticked off the top 10 list of things to do.