Friday 3rd July 2009, Vang Viang-Luang Prabang.

Today was travel day and another long one. We left our place in Vang Viang at 9:30am by tuk tuk to the bus station. The bus was meant to leave at 10am but it was nearer half past before we left. But the bus journey was meant to be 7 hours but we did it in 6, so not bad in the end. The whole journey was through the mountains so the scenery was amazing and so green!! It was lovely to see, well that was when we could keep our eyes open!! But over all not a bad journey.

We arrived in Luang Prabang just before 5pm and after haggling away for a tuk tuk and trying to politely decline some accommodation bloke (this failed-he then followed the tuk tuk) we eventually headed into town to find a guesthouse. We wanted to go and look at the Cold River guesthouse as we had heard it was ok and Lonely planet recommended it!! We have now decided that Lonely Planet recommendations are rubbish. This is the second one we have followed which has basically turned out to be not that great!! Part of the problem was that they only had 2 rooms left and they only had shared bathrooms. This would have been fine if the room was nice but it felt like a prison cell and we don't think it had seen a coat of paint in 10 years!!! Getting to The Cold River guesthouse was fun as the tuk tuk driver kept stopping at other random guesthouses in an effort to get us to stay there!! We had to reinforce several times were it was we wanted to go!! Anyway from the Cold River we started walking back up the road we had come down when a lady approached us to have a look at her guesthouse. We said, yeah ok, and it turned out to be lovely. And it was only 50,000 kip a night for the 2 of us!! (Just under 4 pounds!). The guest house is called Mao Pha Shok Guest house (say that when your drunk!) and it's down a side street on the River Nam Khan.

After checking in we went for a walk around Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang is a World Heritage city. It not only has the River Nam Khan but also the Mekong River also flows around the town as well. Eventually the two meet at the tip of the city. Just walking around was inspiring and we both decided very quickly that we liked it here. Many of the buildings are French orientated and there are Wats and Monks everywhere!!! The centre point of the city is Phu Si Hill with a temple on top. We weren't bothered about the temple but we did think this would be a good place another night to watch sunset. (This was not to be in the end as the weather has been pretty bad-too be explained!!). The initial bit of our walk was to get a drink and at this point we also found a travel agent to get our Thailand flights from. $130 each from here to Bangkok-not too bad. After taking our tickets back to the guesthouse we then headed up the hill too the 2 main streets, which run parallel to each other. Whilst walking along Th Sisavangvong street we came across the night market (It was about 7pm by now), the market is pretty big although it doesn't look that big to start with. It's a Lao crafts markets but also has some food stalls as well. Every night between 5pm and 10pm they close of a section of the above street for the market. It was full of colour and some lovely things. I think we may spend some money!! Dinner tonight along with a few beers was at Hive bar. I had a good stone baked pizza with bacon and feta, and Caroline had a Thai green curry which she said was good!! We also sat chatting to an English guy who lives in New Zealand, for a bit, so got some helpful tips. Although the conversation did turn to deadly animals in Oz-NOT A NICE THOUGHT!!! We left Hive bar at closing (11:30pm is legally the latest anywhere in Laos can stay open) and headed home to bed. This did take a bit of doing as the security guard at the guesthouse was asleep behind the doors and we couldn't wake him up!! Thankfully a lady from the shop near by rang for us and didn't charge us a penny!! There are some friendly people in Laos.

Saturday 4th July 2009, Luang Prabang

This morning we were both woken up by the sound of rain at about 6am!! Not good but this then meant that we stayed in bed until about 11am!! When we did eventually get up it was still raining and then it continued to rain for the next 48 hours!! 2 whole days!!

We left the guesthouse just before 12pm and with our umbrellas we headed to The Scandinavian Bakery. (On the way we did walk up a large set of steps to see Wat Thammothayalan-it wasalong way up!!). The Scandinavian Bakery is the same company as the one in Vientiane but smaller, although we didn't know this until we got there. I had eggs with a croissant, fruit juice and coffee and Caroline had a Salami and cheese salad. We stayed here for about an hour and a half drinking coffee, people watching and chatting before we decided that the rain wasn't going to stop so we had better move and do something!!

First of all we popped into Green Discovery and then White Elephant Tour agencies to find out about same tours for the next day. We both wanted to go to Tat Si waterfall and do some trekking plus maybe some kayaking so we basically wanted to find out what they did for what price. With our information in hand we went away to have a think and at the same time have a look a the Royal Palace museum. The museum originally was the actual royal residence of King Sisavangvong and his family. It was interesting to have a look around and not too big so I couldn't spend hours reading!! Much to Caroline's happiness!! Whilst looking around you have to take your shoes off and its no bear shoulders or upper leg. So I had to put a shawl around my shoulders. Caroline had a proper t-shirt on so she was ok. We both enjoyed ourselves here and then from here we had decided to book a tour through White Elephant so we headed back here to book. We agreed that the tour we would do was trekking to Tat Si Waterfall, lunch there plus some swimming (depending on weather) and then kayaking back down the Nam Khan river back into town. We were also told that lunch would be sticky rice with chicken curry plus other bits!! This was not what we got!! So with a great tour booked (Or so we thought) we went back out into the rain and then went in search of the cooking school we wanted to book a cooking course through. We looked at 2 and then decided on the Tamnak Lao Restaurant cooking class at the elephant cafe. We booked for Monday. $30 dollars each for all day cooking class including lunch, dinner and market experience. Sounds good to me!!

From here we carried on walking along Sisavangvong street to the end where we could see were the two rivers (Nam khan and the Mekong River) meet. It was nice but not spectacular, its just 2 rivers meeting. By now we were very fed up of the rain so we headed back along the street passing a few wats (decided not to visit as ultimately there all the same!!) and after booking our cookery course we went for coffee and cake at the Scandinavian Bakery. I had carrot cake (yummy!) and Caroline had Almond cake. From here it was internet, sypke and blog. And for dinner we went to a busy looking one and I had Grilled fish and Caroline had fish with eggplant. I have now decided that I will not order grilled fish again because by the time you have filleted the dam thing its cold and the hunger has passed!! After dinner and a beer we headed home in a tuk tuk. Neither of us were feeling quite right so we just wanted our beds!! Not that sleep was easy to come by-we were both still awake at 3am!! Not happy bunnies and 2 very tired girls the next morning!! By the way it's still raining!!

Sunday 5th July 2009

Today we had a early start ready for are treking and kayaking tour although it was still raining heavily. We walked to the tea and book shop which had been agreed yesterday that the tour group White Elephant would pick us up from there at 08.30, and we waited and we waited and nobody turned up. Eventually we rang them and the guy who we'd booked the tour through hadn't told anyone that they needed to pick us up from there so that was really helpful (Communication is usually helpful!!) they then weren't sure if it was going ahead or not do to the rain so we decided to walk up to the office. When we arrived the manager who was Canadian was having a heated discussion with two American girls who didn't want to do the tour in the rain but the guy was refusing to give them their money back so they left very angry and upset!! We decided to carry on with the tour as we'd already booked a cooking course for Monday and we fly to Bangkok on Tuesday so today was the only day we could do it. The manager then asked us to walk back to the original place where we been waiting before in the pooring rain and they'd pick us up in 25 mins (Can you tell we were not very impressed by this company already and we hadn't even left town yet how they got such a good repertation I don't know!!). Once we had been picked up we then drove for 30mins and then we started are trek which was very wet and muddy but great fun you'll be pleased to know we put sensible shoes on today. It was a shame really about the weather because I think the scenary around the area we where treking in is usually very stunning and mountainous but as it was so cloudy we couldn't really see it (You can't have everything I suppose). After we had been walking for about a hour and half the guide said we stop for lunch, which we thought was a bit strange as when we'd booked it yesterday we were told lunch would be chicken curry, sticky rice and fresh fruit which sounded lovely, but we were in the middle of no where and all we'd seen the guide put in his bag was 3 sandwhiches, It turns out the sales pitch regarding the lunch was just a lie. Over lunch we asked the guide if we were walking to the waterfall after we had eaten, he said no the tour didn't go to the waterfall but the whole reason we'd booked the tour was to see the waterfall so another lie!! I felt sorry for the guide as it wasn't his fault and this obviously happens alot as he said that the sales people make promises to people but then don't tell the guide's what they've promised so the guides then have deal with all the problems. After lunch we carried on walking and got on another wooden boat which Suz really enjoyed again which took us to the other side where we started are Kayaking. Suz went in a single kayak and I went with the guide as I hadn't really done it before and was a bit nervous.It was really good fun especially the rapids at the end, we kayaked for about 14 km done the Nam Khan river. We were then picked up and taken back to town, we were back at the hotel by 3.30pm but the tour we were told didn't finish till 5.30pm I think we were just ripped off really which is a bit annoying as it cost double what we have paid for other trips so fellow travellers don't book a tour with White Elephant in Luang Prabang!! Once back at the hotel we were in great need of a hot shower as we were so wet and cold by then. We also discovered we had a ant investation in are bathroom which was fine although a bit disgusting I soon zapped then with ant spray which we'd asked for, but it then left the problem of 500 dead ants in the bathroom so we had to grab the lady on reception and show them the problem as it was easier than trying to explain they were very apologetic and soon cleaned it up. After we had warmed up we went to buy some postcards and we went to the Hive bar were been on the first night for a hot drink and to write are postcards but because it was still raining we decided to stay there all night and eat there washed down with a few beer Lao!!

Monday 6th July 2009

Today we started are day at the Scandinavian Bakery for a coffee and a muffin in Suzie's case just a cup of tea for me before starting are cooking course at 10am along with 8 other people and two chefs. For the first part of the day we went to the local market were they explaioned what all the different meat, vegetables and local delicies were which was really very interesting they really do use and eat every part of the animal in there cooking waste not want not. The first two dishes we were shown how to cook and then we cooked them ourselves were Luang Prabang salad and Feu Khua (Fried rice noodles with chicken and vegetables) they were both quite simple to make and they tasted pretty good as well. We then had these two dishes for lunch, after lunch we carried on cooking we were shown how to cook three dishes we then tasted them and picked two to cook ourselves Suz and I chose to cook Kheua Sen Lon (Vermicella noodles with pork, vegetables and woogear fungus) and Oh Paedak (Lao pork Casserole but we used chicken instead) It was really good fun cooking these and I've learnt how to mince meat chicken in my case I personally thought it was a bit of a waste to mince a perfectally good chicken breast!! We then left these under are work station while we had a tea break, after are tea break we were then shown how to make another two dishes and we could pick one to make ourselves we chose Geng Phet (Chilli Casserole), the chefs also demonstated how to make sticky rice which was good as I pefer this to steamed rice and Luang Prabang Jeowbong (Luang Prabang Chilli Paste) was also demonstated, this usually contains buffalo skin but they leave this out in the cooking class we had some last night with Mekong seaweed and im almost postitive that had buffalo skin in it, it was very tasty though. After we had finished cooking are final dish we then got to eat it all it was all really good but there was so much food I don't think we even eat half of it. The cooking course finished at 5.30pm so we've just had a drink and are now updating the blog before heading down to have a look at the night market to buy any last minute presents for ourselves before leaving Laos tomorrow to fly to Bangkok Thailand at 8am in the morning.