Luang Prabang, Jewel of Asia

Our journey from Vang Vien to Luang Probang was a six hour ride in a cramped minibus with little leg room . It would have been a horrible journey if not for the amazing scenery of Loa mountains dotted with traditional villages.

The whole town of Luang Probang has been listed as a UNESCO world heritage site for its picturesque architecture surrounded by rolling mountains. Upon arrival we took a short tuk-tuk ride to our guesthouse before heading out to a restaurant overlooking the Mekong river with some lovely Thai food. Within an hour or two we knew we wanted to extend our stay in Luang Prabang, so we booked an extra night at our hotel.

That evening we explored the night market for a while and had a tipple in a nearby wine bar and then headed back to the hotel at the 11.30 bar curfew.

The next day we headed into the countryside for a tour of a small village and to spend some time with some elephants! We rode an elephant through the jungle, with him rummaging through the overgrowth for a snack along the way, and then went for a swim in the river while he bathed.

On our final day in Luang Prabang we chartered a tuk-tuk for the day to take us to Quang Si National Park. There's a bear sanctuary in the woods for bears that have been rescued from the black market for wild animals. We've never seen so many bears before! They had plenty of room to roam and had a stimulating environment, so it was a really good cause.

We trekked through the rest of the National Park where there were stunnning waterfalls and natural rock pools with bright blue water where we went for a swim. We stayed there for a few hours and then went for a Chang beer before reconvening with our tuk-tuk driver and heading back to town.

That night, facing another night of an 11.30 bar curfew, we were left with one other option - bowling. It's the only place in Luang Probang where the music and beer keeps flowing until 1am, so we hopped into a tuk-tuk and went for a bare-foot game of bowling or three.

The following day we started our long journey back to Thailand, and in doing so we found the best way to travel in Asia - on a slow boat down the Mekong river. The boat was only half full, so there was plenty of room to sleep, and the views were amazing. After 8 hours we had an overnight stop in a little town called Pak Beng before doing the second 10 hour leg of the journey the following morning, all loking forward to being back on Thai soil again!

                                          

Vang Vien

Even though it was cloudy, Vang Vien was an enchanting place to arrive into, with low mist hanging over the mountains and the Mekong River flowing at their feet.  This town was infamous for the backpacker activity of tubing, which was basically a pub crawl down the Mekong in a rubber ring.  However, last year the police closed down almost all of the riverside bars due to the high death rate of travellers from drunken accidents in the water.

The much safer option of tubing minus the alcohol is still available, and we booked a day trip for our second day in Vang Vien, which included tubing into caves and kayaking along the Mekong.

So, we had another early start to catch a minibus to the site of our cave tubing. When we got off the minibus, we walked through a little village to get to the cave entrance on the water. We were given headlamps and we got into our rubber rings in the freezing water and dragged ourselves into the cave using the rope attached to the cave walls.  We pulled ourselves for 500m through the pitch black waters and then we turned around and pulled ourselves back, which provided quite the arm workout!

The cave that we tubed into

We then sat in the riverside village where we were served barbecued chicken skewers and rice for lunch followed by fresh pineapple.  

Our food being cooked

Lunch!

It was then time to get back on the minibus for a short journey to the place that we'd start our kayaking.  On the way back through the village to the bus, the guide stopped to show us a temple in a cave.  Asians will take any chance to sneak a cheeky temple into a daytrip.

Temple Cave, AKA Elephant Cave

The kayaks were two people to one kayak, so Steven and Marc got in one and Amy and Gareth got in another.  In total, we kayaked for about an hour and a half, which again proved quite tiring on the arms, especially for little Amy, but she refused to stop rowing and let Gareth do all the work!  After 40 minutes of rowing (and Gareth and Amy crashing into some rocks and getting stuck!), we stopped at one of the remaining riverside bars for a rest and a beerlao, before continuing down the river for another hour or so.

 
That evening, we soaked up the scenery at some bars in the town. There's no shortage of bars in Vang Vien, with it being a fully fledged backpacker town, but there is an 11pm bar curfew throughout the whole of Laos, so no wild nights out for us here!