Lovely Luang Prabang

We staggered up the jetty and started searching, as Liz mentioned, for a less crazy guesthouse.Based on the benchmark of the last one, this wasn't too hard!We stumbled across a decent enough guesthouse set back slightly from the river at a price of about £4.20 per night for the room.Despite a slightly musty smell in the room (and a cockroach we later found) it had a double bed, fan and private bathroom.In need of food we set off to find the night market that was very craft and art focused along the main street of Luang Prabang with a few food stalls dotted around at the end of the street.The market was really nice and you were not hassled by every stall vendor much like in Bangkok.On first impressions it wasn't that impressive for food but we were assured it was due to the rain that had started to come down.

After a good sleep we got up not expecting to see our fellow travellers for some time so we went in search of breakfast and found the 3 of them outside the fruit shake stand having got chatting to 2 Brits and an Aussie and already having agreed a price for a tuk tuk to the impressive waterfalls about an hour outside Luang Prabang.At first we had thought we would see temples and then the waterfalls but with no strict agenda to adhere to we grabbed a very very good baguette for breakfast and jumped in the tuk tuk for the somewhat bumpy journey to the falls.

The waterfalls were beautiful, so picturesque and a veritable playground for anyone who likes to jump off waterfalls and rope swings in to the cool and fresh water below.We whiled away the afternoon here walking up a very steep hill to the top of the main waterfall.The walk was certainly a challenge in flip flops as it was so slippery you had to hold on to what ever was there as a support.Poor Lizzy did slip when we were at the top, luckily no where near the edge but unluckily cut her elbow, but as always she was more intrigued by what might be around the next corner than her elbow!

Once back at the bottom we found the main swimming area and spent the next hour or so swimming around with our slow boat buddies with them back flipping off the top of the waterfall!Whilst it looked very impressive I didn't attempt this, I stuck to jumping from the top (just the once!) and swinging from the rope swing and falling in to the plunge pool of the waterfall.Great fun indeed!

That evening when we got back we were all pretty hungry so went back to the market and found a much better street for food so each grabbed a large plate from the buffet plus a sausage and chicken breast from the BBQ stall and tucked in to a much better meal that the night before.Seeing at it was England's last group game we headed to a very cool bar called Utopia that looked out over the river.Despite not showing the game we had a drink and a couple of games of cards and then Lizzy and I left the others and went to a different place for the second half.Excellent!The other guys turned up a bit later and we ordered a Giraffe (5 or 6 pints of Beer Lao that you get and then pour yourself). We polished this off with a drinking game called 0 0 7 Bang Ah! Quite amusing when more people who didn't have a great grasp of the English language joined in.

The next morning, with slightly fuzzy heads we had some food and then set about seeing some of the towns impressive temples.It was such a hot day that no sooner had we walked out of the room all showered and clean that we were hot sweaty messes.We saw a couple of temples and then climbed some steep steps to see the main temple and an imprint of Buddha's foot.Due to the heat Kevin and Rhys headed back to their room for a sleep and Lizzy and I carried on to a really cool little bookshop with café upstairs.In the bookshop they run stencil-making classes but instead of parting with much needed survival funds we watched the guy making them and then bought a cheap one that we liked as a souvenir.

In the evening it was back to the good food market and then on the way home, Kevin who's new favourite game is s***head suggested buying a cheap bottle of booze and some mixer and whiling away the rest of the evening playing cards.It was certainly the cheapest option despite not being the best quality.

Having decided to head off the next day to Vang Vieng we booked our bus for the morning.As we had to get up early anyway Liz and I got up at 5.25am to see the monks receiving alms from the locals.The locals all prepare rice and other small selections of food and sit on the pavements of a large square of streets and the monks walk passed in single file with the locals placing a small handful of such things as sticky rice into the containers that the monks carry.As the monks cannot handle money nor eat after 12pm this provides them with their morning meal.Really interesting to watch and we were pleased we made the effort to get up, especially having drunk what was claimed to be vodka the night before.

Our lift we had been pleased to book didn't turn up so we grabbed a tuk tuk to the bus station and got on the next mini bus going to Vang Vieng.Even thought it was a mini bus it was pretty uncomfortable due to being so squashed in and the very windy roads but the amazing scenery on route was a great distraction, that is, if you could manage to keep your eyes open for more than 30 seconds.Six hours later we arrived in Vang Vieng and were pleasantly surprised given the place we imagined we might be greeted by based on what we had heard and read.

Sam