Luang Prabang....the secret waterfall

The next day we went to the Kouangxi waterfalls that every Tuk Tuk driver tried to sell us a ride to, once we got there we could see why. It was huge, with sky blue aqua pools of clean water surrounded by Jungle. Friends of ours had visited the day before and discovered a pool at the top, so we trekked up but couldn’t find it. After some further investigation and climbing up part of the water fall we found the elusive pool, which was also the home that day to many many young monks jumping from ledges into to the water. Dave and Aman joined them, it was an incredible scene of Monks and Falang swimming together on the edge of a very high waterfall.

At the bottom of the falls

Trying to find the pools we'd heard about but couldn't for the life of us find

Found them, but it was a mission getting there

 

We found it, but so had the monks -  we gladly shared

Can you spot the flying Monk?

Another flying Monk

 

Sitting on the edge!

Overall Luang Prabang (which is the old capital and a UNESCO city) was chilled, cultured and an easy place to let the days slip by. Dave and I ended up staying almost a week after delaying our bus to Phonsovan due to the onset of a midnight illness Dave suffered and is still sleeping off. It’s nice to be able to cross the street easily, enjoy the cool nights, eat delicious food from not just Laos but from all over the world not to mention spending time browsing English books. We recommend the town to anyone keen to come to Laos.

Luang Prabang at night

Amelia, Dave, Aman and Jurian our for dinner

Luang Prabang....Elephants and Mahouts

Friday morning we got picked up to go on our Elephant Mahout experience, to arrive at a beautiful property with 9 elephants, each with her own Mahout (trainer, owner, best friend). We were a group of 6, a French couple who didn’t want to know us and a nice English couple, Katie and Neil. The first activity was a 1 hour ride sitting in a chair, we were assigned an elephant per couple. Dave and I had a huge elephant call Mae San who was also quite speedy. We went down to the river where the Elephants gently stepped in and walked us to a sand bank. Here Dave moved to Mae San’s neck and the Mahout sat next to me in the chair. Dave and I then swapped and I sat on her neck the whole way home. It was actually less scary sitting on the Elephant than in the chair in which you are perched on unnatural angles to stay on.

We then did Elephant training, where we sat on a naked elephant and used voice commands to direct her. Later we rode them on a walk through the jungle 1 elephant per person to where they sleep, riding on their necks with a Mahout sitting behind us usually singing, sometimes smoking and asking questions.

We stayed the night in a beautiful place next to the river, to be picked up at 6.30am by boat and taken to the jungle to ride the Elephants back to the river. We were all a little nervous as we knew that we would also be washing the elephants that morning and it WAS REALLY COLD. Once we got there and disrobed ourselves of jumpers and jacket, the Elephants started to go crazy, making loud rumbling noise and trumpeting, moving around intertwining trunks - all the while we were on their necks, I was holding onto some course hair and a fold of skin, the Mahout holding onto me.

Into the river we went and the trumpeting stopped. The dunking began, mostly my Elephant who proceeded to the delight of many Mahouts, dunked her whole entire head  and body under, taking me with her too. We when both emerged from the water I had to scrub her head with a brush. Dave’s elephant sucked water in her trunk and squirted it repeatedly. All in all the water was warm is was a brilliant thing to do first thing in the morning. The elephants then took us home and we fed them sugar cane before showering and eating breakfast, still glowing from our River bath.

Our first ride

     Into the river

Off the seat and onto the neck

Resting between elephants

Elephant training - using voice commands only

Washing in the river

The Elephant Spirit lodge that we stayed at

On the way to Luang Prabang...interesting bus ride

Got home Tuesday night and organized a mini bus to Luang Prabang, with 2 other guys (Aman and Jurian) on our trek and 2 girls (Natalie and Emily) we had met the night before at the Guest House.  We boarded the ‘Bus from hell’ unaware of how our 8 hour ride would unfold (this is for Anth) -  the next 5 hours was spent going what one might consider as QUITE fast over the worst roads in history, in a van with no shock absorbers.

It was so bad that it would almost be impossible to describe, other than asking someone to try to imagine ‘spending 5 hours holding onto the bottom of your seat, so your head doesn’t hit the roof (very tiring) while also holding the handle on the van roof to stabilize and prevent you from sliding and slamming into the side of the bus. It’s impossible to sleep and every 3 seconds the axle will be given a beating by the road. Then you must breathe in dust from the unsealed sections (85%) of the roads, as well as enjoy it all through the bus on your clothes and belongings. The dust is also so prevalent in the air that your throat is dry but you can’t close the windows as the A/C doesn’t work (oh so you‘re also sweating, which then turns the dust into mud). Toilet breaks are luckily frequent because your kidneys are so jolted that they will let go of anything they have and dump it into your bladder on a regular basis (making you need to pee OFTEN) - but don’t expect toilets, you must squat/stand on the side of the road. You then eat lunch at a bus stop and enjoy the next two hours trying to ignore the fact that the driver is trying to keep himself awake while overtaking trucks and dodging scooters.’

The sinful Lao Bus

So we arrived alive but exhausted, sat in a café for a while and then sent out a convoy to find some accommodation. Eventually we found a nice place that all 6 of us could stay in. Next day we ate big breakfast had a walk around and then booked a 2 day elephant camp. As it was hot the Nam Ha River was inviting so we hired tire tubes and floated down the river, which was quite fun (riding rapids and dodging bamboo bridges) until we found ourselves at the entrance of the Mekong  River floating into oblivion (or eventually Cambodia) towards passenger river boats. We furiously paddled to the boat dock and yanked our tubes out, while also having a giggle at how funny we looked amongst the ACTUAL boats, wearing matching hats and fully clothed lying in tubes. We had to walk about 1.5 kms down the road to our original destination while being laughed at by locals and Falang alike.