Hello everyone,

We are now in Luang Prabang, Laos. We flew from Krabi to Bangkok on Thursday, stayed overnight near the airport and flew from Bangkok to Laos on Friday. This is a lovely city and a World Heritage site. You can see evidence of French colonialism everywhere. The Laos staff in the hotel can't do enough for us and are so sweet, friendly and helpful. There is a shuttle bus into town, which saves walking across the man made bamboo bridge! Rickety isn't the word for it. They build it every 6 months because it gets washed away when the monsoons come. We crossed it first time at night!!!!

We thought the weather would be cooler as we are a 1000klms north of Krabi. Er, wrong. It was 40 degrees today and very humid tonight. Walking around the night market was draining but unlike Thailand, there is no pressure to buy at all, which makes for a much more pleasurable experience. We ate street food Laos style tonight. All you can eat buffet for £1.40p and the choice was immense.

This morning, we were picked up from the hotel by private taxi and taken an hour out of town to Kuang Si waterfall. We arrived early to avoid all the tourists and we were almost the first to arrive. Having spent 45 minutes in a Moon bear sanctuary, we ventured up to the falls themselves. Ignoring all the signs about snakes, lizards, leopard cats, wild bears and even wild tigers. We were met with THE most spectacular sight! To say that this place was stunningly beautiful, breathtaking, magical and exhilarating is an understatement. We went swimming in the freezing cold water but it was SO worth it! We weren't reliant on a tour group, so we could stay as long as we wanted and we loved every minute of it.
Our hotel looks out over the mighty Meekong River and we are up at 5.30am tomorrow to take part in the alms ceremony. 75 monks pass by collecting food from the villagers. We have ordered some rice from the hotel kitchen to give the monks as they pass by the hotel in the morning. This has been a memorable day!