Day: September 27, 2016

After a little more casual start to the day, we boarded two mini buses for our excursion to the Kuang Si Waterfall. Apparently, I didn’t see much along the way as my head managed to find a comfortable position for the entire journey.

We stopped by a village to wander around to see, and purchase no doubt, scarves being made from the cotton grown in the area. The cotton tree is a high variety compared to the low bushes in Australia. This lady was getting rid of the seeds in the cotton before spinning the thread onto a reel ready to be used in the looms. All this is manual labour and many of the houses in the village have weaving looms set up under their houses. It was handy to know that the purchases were locally made goods rather than the China version brought across the border to the north.

Just close by, is the entrance to the Kuang Si Waterfall. After a visit to the ‘happy room’ (the term used by the tour guides for toilet), we wander through an area set up to protect bears from poachers. They have been rescued from poachers; some with injuries from traps.

Kuang Si (Xi) Waterfall is the biggest in the Luang Prabang area with three tiers leading to a 50-metre drop into spectacular azure pools before flowing downstream. The pools also make great swimming holes and are very popular with both tourists and locals. You can change clothes for swimming at the wooden huts located close to the entrance.

The pools also have cascades of up to five metres high with deliciously cold water due to the shade given by the surrounding lush tropical jungle, if you don’t fancy a swim then you can relax in the shade and watch others having fun jumping in and out of the water.

There are trails allowing you to climb up to the top where you can see the stream feeding into the falls and enjoy some more natural pools. www.visit-laos.com

The falls are in hearing distance, and it is good to have some coolness in the air. We wander upstream past rapids along the way. There are many tourists and backpackers visiting too. The difference between them and Scenic tourists is that we were able to enjoy a prepared picnic just near the falls – another great feature that Scenic provide for their clients.

When we had eaten lunch, we returned to the gate and the ice-cream guy was inundated by us all. He ran out of magnums with one bunch of tourists. I didn’t see much of the return journey to the hotel either; the head found that comfortable position again. However, more relaxation was on the way as 4 of us took a tuk tuk ride into town for another 2 hour massage; one of the best of the six we have enjoyed during this tour.

Our evening meal this evening, was our farewell dinner at the Elephant Restaurant near the Mekong River. Our Vietnam Tour Guides fly back to Saigon early in the morning so there were lots of good wishes to them both before going to bed.

Tomorrow, we fly to Singapore via Bangkok.

Early starts are hard to face. Today, we were up at 5:00am for a ‘look see’ at the Alms Ceremony. Each morning, the monks go around the town collecting food such as ‘sticky rice’. They either use some themselves or give the ‘gifts’ to the city’s poor. Groups of monks walk in single file to collect the food before returning to the temples or pagodas for their day’s activity.One young monk would have been around 7 or 8.

The people of Indo China love markets. Experiencing a, what I call ‘a breakfast market’ is another ‘why would I eat that’ experience. We see lovely fresh garden produced fruit and vegetables as well as the ‘you’re not going to get away’ crabs, fish, insects and rodents. I can leave what is included in that group to your imagination but to the uninitiated, its not a pretty sight.

We get away from breakfast by 9:00am for a city walk that includes the national museum and the Vat Xiang Thong Temple. A long boat awaits near the town to take us to the Pak Ou Cave. This boat has a ”first class”, as we call it, for us to take a nap during the 1.5 hour journey up the Mekong River. We are at a point 4,000 kms from the mouth of the river in the south of Vietnam and only at 300 metres altitude. That’s not a long drop in altitude for such a distance, and the water is moving very fast.

It’s good to see the countryside of Laos. The lifestyle seems so much less fast moving compared to the cities of Saigon, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and the countryside is made up of jungle and lush farms. Rice is not the dominant crop anymore like it is on the plains to the south. We were served a meal on the way to the caves.

The Pak Ou (also written Pakou) Caves are one of the most treasured religious symbols of the Louang Prabang Province. Several legends tell stories of this site where, over the years, thousands of statues of Buddha have been deposited.

The entrance to the caves is a masterpiece, being as it is situated in a vertical cliff (which confirmed climbers will thoroughly enjoy) in the middle of a luxuriant jungle. The stairs, even though they are steep, are well looked after and equipped for many visitors. This site, which is primarily a religious site, is very much visited today by tourists; so don’t expect to be on your own for meditation. http://www.luangprabang-laos.com

Our guide advises that the steps are ‘heavy going’ for those who find steps a problem but for all, it is worth a look just to see so many statutes, some gold leafed, scattered around the cave. There are somewhere in the vicinity of 2,500 of these statutes, some large, some very tiny. It is the sort of cave where you expect some opera singer to start up and enjoy the acoustics and atmosphere.

The return trip back to Luang Prabang was almost half the time it took to go upstream to the caves, and those who took advantage of the ‘first class’ lounge, didn’t get such a good nap. Along the way, we stopped off at a village. The first stall was a rice-whisky making venture. Some tasted the 40-50% alcohol drink that sounded like a very overpowering solution. You can guess only a couple chose to try it.

An excursion of a different kind was planned for when we returned. We’ve all tried bocce, or pentaque. The laotian people learned it from the days of the French occupation and so the adventurous went to the city competition location. After a lengthy explanation of the rules, we were divided up into two teams and had a good time of competition of the laotian kind.

Our evening was free dining so a group of us made our way to the town and found The Blue Lotus Restaurant. Laotian currency is the Kip and nothing is priced under 100 kip. Our meal cost 216,000 kip, about $A35,

Tomorrow, we visit some waterfalls for a picnic lunch and for the brave, a river swim.