Mekong Madness
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
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Our slow boat trip to Luang Prabang down the Mekong river brought us through the jungle amongst some stunning limestone cliffs and very remote villages. 6 hours and a numb ass later we arrived at the Pak Ou Caves 1 hour away from our final destination. The caves are supposedly the best thing to see when staying in Luang Prabang so since we were passing we dropped in. Unfortunately it’s write up does more for it than actually being there, however it was cheap and a nice break to get the circulation going again.
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We soon arrived in Luang Prabang and scouted out the city for some fruit shakes (the current tipple for the majority of the group). Luang Prabang is very similar to Luang Nam Tha, but probably has ten times as many tourists which we are still adjusting to as we are used to being the only westerners for miles around. Anyway Luang Prabang offers the same outdoor activities and has a general holiday feel to it. It is also home to a handicraft night market which has added some weight to our bags, there’s everything from stunning lanterns, paintings and snake wine to the infamous Beer Lao T-shirt of which Taylor is now the proud owner of! We ate at the food market to save on the pennies and ended up with a great buffet meal for about 60p.. bargain (and the food was really good!). We’ve also hit into monsoon territory and found ourselves stuck in the night market when the heavens opened! We eventually made a run for it and swam into the next bar looking like a bunch of drowned rats just in time for some more fruit shakes!
Our first full day was taken up by the internet, we’ve started planning our next move and found some cheap flights to Borneo and Oz so we’re all booked up for our next adventures.. you’ll have to stay tuned to see what they are!
Our next day was probably one of the best days of the trip so far; swimming with elephants. We trekked with them for half an hour then got to go in the water and bath with them. It was great! Ben had trouble staying on in the water and ended up facing the wrong way while Maggs was having problems getting on as her elephant didn’t want to stay seated long enough for her to get up so it was all a bit of a giggle and an amazing experience. After a short swim in the waterfall we headed back to prepare for the birthday celebrations for Kaye – a wine and cheese night. That might not sound too exciting for you back at home where cheese and wine is available 24hrs.. but when you’ve not had a blue cheese, Brie or even Cheddar for so long and a good bottle of white wine has been tricky to find, a wine and cheese night was luxury and just what we all needed before our last chance shopping at the night market before we head for Vang Vieng the next morning.
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Currently in Vang Vieng preparing for a days tubing – i.e. Floating down the river in a rubber tube whilst stopping off at bars for some drinks, I could see this catching on in Leith! This is the thing to do here so Team Odyssey are going on mass to try it out.. wish us luck! Record of this event probably won’t make the blog as river + alcohol = broken camera!
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