Luang Prabang

First off, Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage site, mostly, as far as I can tell, because of the number of wats and monks. The town is filled with these wats (small monastery/temples) where monks of all ages go about there daily lives. Around 6am each morning the monks process to receive food offerings from locals and, increasingly, tourists who are sometimes bused in just for the show, and line up in droves with cameras on tripods to capture it. I had been pushing for us to get up and see the procession, but we found ourselves embarrassed to be among the other tourists, and decided to refrain from taking photos and take a quiet stroll instead.

We had great company while in Luang Prabang, including friends from southern Laos and an Irish couple who had spent 6 months in India and were on their way to China; we exchanged lots of stories and tips. One of the quirks of Luang Prabang is that the whole town closes up at 11pm except a Chinese run bowling alley on the outskirts of the area. One night, after a lovely evening of drinks by the river and all-you-can-fit-on-your-plate vegetarian food for $.60, we piled into a tuk-tuk and bowled the night away. The 3 Americans far out-bowled the Cambodian, the Belgian, and the 2 Irish. In case you were wondering.

While we enjoyed an afternoon cycling around town, and evenings of fantastic street food, our favorite day took us out of town to the Kuang Si waterfall, hands down the best I've ever been to! On our way in, we stopped by the moon bear preserve where several rescued bears, captured when babies to harvest their bile for "medicine", were living out their lives in peace. They're called Moon Bears for the distinctive half-moon shaped swoop of white marking their chests.

The waterfall itself was super dramatic.


Walking up to it, we passed some beautiful smaller pools, and once at the top we were able to hike up around the side where we found a wooden staircase which went straight up through some cascades to reach the top of the mountain.
Back in town, we climbed Phu Si hill on our last evening in order to catch the sunset and the lovely views over the whole area.