Luang Prabang, Laos

Highlights from the quaint Mountain town along Mekong and Mae Kok Rivers..

-Night bus from Vientiane. It was a twisty and bumpy nighttime ride. We could not see out the windows....which was actually probably a good thing for the way up there...I will explain later.  So we slept the best we could....the problem with this night bus is it lets all the paying customers on then let in file the locals to sleep on the floor in the ailes of the bus....soo it was pretty cramped. We rolled into Luang Prabang earrlyyy in the morning. We found a guest house for 10 bucks a night....divided by three...and took an early morning nap.

-We got a feel for the little town and walked the streets.....up and down...watched some kids play in the river, browsed the used book stores, passed by the real nice hotels and motels saying..."one day we an stay there", perused the night market, and signed up for the next day adventures

-Erin, Danielle and I have been early birds...so we signed up for a full day of activities!  I woke up Wednesday morning had some yogurt and muesli, walked through the morning market then walked over to the travel lodge.  We got picked up and went on elephant rides!  I of course got the baby elelphant. It was 10 years old and 1/2 the size of everyone elses.  WE pretty much sat in strapped on highchairs and went for a ride.  We got to ride "bareback" or i guess on their necks..but since mine was so dang small it was kinda uncomfortable.  I got up there for a photoshoot then I crawled back into my highchair.  The pictures are pretty great from this ride and the girls are usually bent over in tear of laughter when looking at some of the pictures with me and Dumbo....so I promise you some good laughs.

-Facts about my elephant driver
--He was "18'" years old
--His name was Lenny
--He was hung over from drinking to much Beer Laos the night before
--He was jealous of his friend "driving" aka passed out in the highchair attached to the elephant ahead of us, next to some British girl (paying customer) while her friend(paying customer) was on the elephants neck making sure it stayed on the path.  Lenny boy kept trying to get me to switch places with him so he could take a nap and I could be a real elephant driver. No thanks pal.
--Lenny was convinced his girlfriend may be a lady boy. "She is my girlfriend for one year. She not pregnant. Maybe a lady boy??!!!" (I almost started lecturing....but I held my tongue and said your to young for girlfriends.)
--He played hot beats off his cell phone while trekking through the jungle.  There is nothing like being surround by beautiful nature and Justin Bieber singing Baby, Baby, Baby...ohhhh ...

-After elephant riding we got picked up and brought to the Kuang Si Waterfall. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. I was just hanging out inside a post card or on some watercolor on the wall...at least that's what it felt like!!

-Sooooo there are many places to eat in Luang Prabang.  Many places have western food and are geared toward the tourists....well we found the night street food market.....aka for the locals and for the back packers on a budget.....we pad a whopping 10,000 kip which is a little less then $2.00...for all you can pile on your plate of this.....

Soooooooooooooooo Goooooooooooooooood

We ate this 2 nights in a row both at family style tables with other travelers...we got lots of tricks of the trade from people who were on day 100 of living out of their bags to people who were on day 5.  We were only on about day 8 and 9 at this point but we shared what we could! :)

The best part about this was it was down a really small alley. A small dirty alley....this is true to the phrase..finding a diamond in the rough.  Some of the best food I have had.  We picked what we wanted and then she warmed it up for us in a wok.

-We got our laundry done.....but not before I ruined some of our clothes by pouring softer on them...thinking it was detergent...we wanted to save our money and do laundry in the sink. No English on the bottle..it was as I was pouring we realized this was not thick enough to be detergent....I guess when you let that sit for a night and day in a bag then give it to be hand washed it leaves dark, dried in spots on your clothes.  I am going to trade it for some water bottles or something cause we have no need for just softer on this trip. jeeez rachel....where is your head at!!!!

-A cliff hanger of a mini bus ride back down the Mountain to Vang Vieng.  The views spectacular....the little towns we passed though...unimaginable as far as daily living conditions.....the curves of the mountain crazy steep, with no guard rails.....but we arrived safe and sound in this little town I am once again at loss of words to describe where I sit today. At least for the moment. I want another day to really feel out the city.  So I will take a day on the river and "ponder" and report back on Vang Vieng, Laos. 

xo Rach