Our first few days off the slow boat were spent exploring the city and going aroung the markets, which are very extencive. They take up one of the main streets within the town(and the town is not exactly large). Louang Phabang is surrounded by two rivers, one being the Mecong, and the other a tributary of it.

After a few days we decided to take the 81/2 hr bus ride up to the plane of jars. This is an archeological site that was extecivly bombed by the americans during their veitnam war. We spent two nights their and managed to see all three jar sights. One of the things that struck us most about the area was the evidents , and amount of UXO's in the area. There is so much that the guest house we stayed at was using empty cases from bullets as key rings, and also using a massive shell casong as a bbq.

After our two nights we headed back to Louang Phabang. Whilst there this time we were alittle more adventurus and decided to hire mountain bikes with the plan to go searching for a waterfall. So the next morning we headed out on our dangerous adventure with rubbish map in pocket, and dreems of waterfalls. Ok for the first hour or so we went in completly the wrong direction, and matt mannaged to fall off his bike and ruin his knee. So after patching matt up we went onto the right track which turned out to be a steep road over a mountain, at which point it decided to pour it down, tropical style. But we eventually got there, or so we thought. We got off our bikes for a poto opp at the bilboard telling us we were there, but it was lying! We had to cycle another mile, get a boat which ment leaving the bikes, and matt behind. And when we got there it was the biggest dissapointment ever, there were about 3 streams trickling about 5-10 down. So we got a tuk-tuk back, coz our bums hurt.

And thus our time in Louang Phabang ended and we headed to new parstures with jacks birthday and tubing in mind, little did we know what was about to happen at our next destination.