The Excellent Adventure: Luang Prabang, Laos

So it seems that our blogs always start with some account of the journey here, but we think in this case it's especially important to point out that our 6 hour "VIP Minibus" ride was right out of a horror story. The road between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang is essentially one long, nauseating, cliff-sided curve, and although Jessica was not (repeat: WAS NOT!!!!) one of them, two people in our van got sick... TWO times each. To top it all off, our driver was practically falling asleep the whole time, refused to turn on the AC, and blasted sad Lao pop balads the ENTIRE ride. So although both of us made it to Luang Prabang without throwing up, if we ever have to hear another "Lao Whitney Houston" song again, we will both probably puke right then and there. Ha. What a ride!

Despite the fact that getting here was awful, Luang Prabang is incredible! The city was built by the colonial French, and it still has that "french" feeling to it. The architecture is beautiful; lots of colonial buildings with blue shutters, and there seems to be an unlimited supply of amazing restuarants and "I want to buy everything in here" art shops/markets. Add to that the presence of 32 Wats filled with saffron-robbed monks and gold-leafed buildings, and you have the french-lao fusion city of Luang Prabang. (Ginny and Amy: This is the San Miguel of Laos!)

A typical street in Luang Prabang.

One of the river-side restaurants at sunset.

A Wat

The Mekong hasn't been this low in decades!

Monsoon rainfall finally broke the heat on our fourth evening here.

We spent our first day or so here just walking around and enjoying the city. Our hostel was right on the Mekong, so it was easy to find a river-side restaurant to enjoy a Beerlao or two. The next day, we decided to head to the Kouang Si waterfall; a ride to which we had been offered by every tuk-tuk driver in Luang Prabang, so we knew it had to be good. We were not disappointed: if there is a paradise on earth, this waterfall is it. The water is an impossible turquoise blue color, and the waterfall has endless tiers, each creating a perfect little swimming pool. What's more, we were lucky enough to find our way to a tier of the waterfall way up high that no one else had found--with the exception of a gaggle of 6-12 year old monks. We weren't sure at first what the ettiquite was when surrounded by a dozen pre-teen monks, but by the end of the day they were jumping off cliffs into the water with us! It was a perfect afternoon.