Since our last update, we've had another 2 nights in Luang Prabang. On Wednesday night, we ventured across the very shaky bamboo bridge and went to a pizza restaurant which had good reviews on trip advisor. The pizza was excellent and we would definitely recommend the restaurant, Pizza Phan Luang. After leaving stuffed, we sat on the balcony back at the hotel and enjoyed a beer.
On Thursday, we had arranged to visit Kuang Si waterfalls which are about 40km outside of Luang Prubang. We were picked up at 11.30am from our hotel by the Lewis Hamilton of tuk tuk drivers. He proceeded to overtake as many vehicles as he could and take corners as quickly as possible without overturning the tuk tuk. Luckily, we made it to the waterfalls. We had done a bit of research about what there was to do at the waterfalls and 3 hours sounded like more than enough but the rest of our group wanted 5 hours at the waterfalls so after a heated discussion with the driver, they got their way. Their is a bear sanctuary next to the waterfalls and we had luckily arrived at feeding time so we got to see quite a few bears which was pretty good. After this, we hiked up to the top of the waterfall which was quite a trek before we went to take some decent photos. Unfortunately, we had a couple of pieces of bad luck. Almost at the same time, Beth managed to slip on some rocks and fall quite heavily. I was looking at the camera, which had just packed up, and only heard a massive thud and thought she had hit her head. Fortunately, she had fell on her elbow and shoulder and was okay apart from some bruising and swelling. Our memory card had stopped working on our camera so unfortunately we only have a few photos of the waterfalls and bears. We will have to try to sort it when we get home. We had a swim in the freezing pools which were really busy before driving off and being ready to leave at about 3pm. As our group had successfully argued earlier though, we had to wait until about 4.30pm before we could leave. We enjoyed the waterfalls but they are very touristy. They are definitely worth a visit though if your in the area.
The journey back from the waterfalls was again interesting! Our driver hadn't calmed his driving instincts and within 10 minted of leaving the waterfalls, he had forced a small lorry off the road and come within a couple of metres of hitting it!!! We then got soaked off a couple of groups of kids which we were told were preparing for Laos New Year next week. Unluckily for me, I was the one that got soaked both times and one of these contained a lot of red dye. This wasn't good given that I was wearing a white t shirt. The t shirt was
ruined but hopefully the kids enjoyed it!!
On Thursday night, we grabbed some food from a restaurant and bought a couple of items from the night market. Beth wanted to buy loads more but I had to remind her that we've still got almost 4 months left!!