After another gruelling 6 hours on the longboat we finally arrived at Luang Prabang and this time we wasn't greeted by dozens of crazy Laos people trying to drag us into their guesthouses!! First impressions of Luang Prabang are good ones, it's a quaint town with a slight french feel, home to many bakeries and coffee shops. We first walked along the river front looking for hostels and wasn't very successful, we headed to the main strip and discovered hostel prices to be very expensive. We found it very confusing as they quoted prices in kip, dolla and baht!?! But we stuck to our guns and set ourselves a budget that we were adament to keep! After an hour of walking around we came across a small side street guesthouse "Chittana", quoting us $10 a night, we bartered it down to $7 using the fact that Leanna and Nikki had to share a bed as an excuse for a discount! We met our new kiwi friend Richard for dinner and strolled round the nightmarket, then it was off to bed for an early night.

The next day we set off in search for some local attractions. We walked round the entire town and climbed what seemed like a thousand steps to the top of Phousi Mount, where the Wat That Chom Sii temple lies and some of the most beatiful views in Luang Prabang. We walked around the temple and the many Budha statues, we also came across Budha's footprint, which was mighty big!! After a day of sight seeing we headed to a children's cultural show where we was blessed with good luck and happiness marked with a peice of string tied round our arms, we were given traditional Laos sweets and tea (which Zak kindly drank for all of us). After that Nikki and Leanna left Zak in the sports bar to watch the footie, while they went for some food. On the way back to meet Zak they were enticed by the many stalls on the night market and after haggling their first bargain got a taste for it and there was no stopping them!! Nikki took her time browsing through each item making sure she made the right choice, whereas Leanna on the other hand impulse bought under pressure from the pushy women, but both were ultimately happy with their purchases!

On Sunday we planned to go to the museum followed by a trip to the waterfall. Sadly though, we arrived at the museum and weren't allowed in as our arms were exposed, not having time to run back and get changed we decided to head straight for the waterfall. We managed to hunt down a tuk tuk and off we went!... Firstly we visited the bears and tigers and then went for a swim in the waterfall pool, which was very cold!!! In a hurry to dry off, we set off up to the top of the waterfall, slipping and sliding along the way. Leanna was the first to fall into a muddy pool and from then on lost all control and was all over the shop, Zak standing closely by for support! Nikki was way up front on a mission to complete the trek. Finally we made it back down to the bottom in one piece and drove shivering back to our guesthouse. Another early morning in store for Monday as we set off for Van Vien.