Well we had a nice last day in Luang Nam Tha. Dan rented a motorbike again and drove about 300km total in the countryside and saw some pretty crazy stuff (I will let him tell those stories when we get home), and me, longing for a slightly quieter day, rented a bicycle and pedaled around the city and surrounding villages for the day. It was extremely pleasant. All the little kids love when you ride by and make a point of running out, waving and yelling "Sadaidee!!" - hello in Lao. We are at the end of the dry season here now so all the rice farmers are starting to plant now and the fields that are on their way are so beautiful. The green fields of rice with scattered bamboo huts and mountains in the background are so picturesque. It is still really really hot here, and the farmers are burning the brush in the areas where they will plant rice so it always is a little smokey and foggy in the countryside...no wonder they call this the fire season!
The following day we headed off to Luang Prabang by local bus, which started out as a pretty fun adventure. The bus was ancient, and packed to the max, with both people and stuff! Then centre isle was full of bags of rice and bamboo shoots that you had to walk over to get to your seat (we set out a little later than expected from our guesthouse so of course we were right at the back). People from the local villages would flag the bus down on the side of the road and get on with 2 little kids, 3 bags of rice, some sort of dis-assembled machinery and live chickens, all of which (except the children..ha ha) would get hoisted up and strapped to the roof of the bus. Once the bus stopped at this open air market and people scurried off the bus and came back with bamboo shoots, cucumbers and other foods...a grocery stop perhaps? Whenever the bus had to stop for construction or something as well half the bus emptied to pee in the bushes, including the women...I was among them once and happy this was culturally appropriate because I always have to pee on road trips :>) The roads were very winding and because of all the stops the 200 or so kilometers took us about 9 hours and we were so happy to get off the bus!
Luang Prabang is definitely the supremely pleasant city that it is described as, but of course more touristy than Luang Nam Tha. But it's total charm makes up for it. There are temples and monks roaming the streets everywhere, the architecture is beautiful, it's right on the Mekong and there are cafes serving delicious coffee and toasty baguettes everywhere (the French influence). The first day we were here we took this little ferry across the Mekong to check out a temple on the hilltop because it afforded a nice view of the river. It was stinking hot and as I was sitting down to try to cool off Dan started vigorously fanning me with this fan he found. Then, to our great surprise, the fan broke, hit me in the face (I still have the bruise and the scrape), and then fell down and stabbed Dan in the toe). Fiasco. We had to stop of the way back to buy some kleenex to clean up the blood so we looked somewhat presentable for the ride back. In the afternoon we found a beautiful cafe across from a temple and watched the monks sweeping up the leaves as we sipped away at our iced coffees, so that made up for the theatrics of the morning. We realized the following day, however, that we missed an interesting temple across the river (we were distracted by our wounds) so we decided we would head back over (also an excuse to ride the ferry again). We had the idea that we would rent bicycles this time. What we failed to realize was that there was a thunderstorm the night before and the road to the temple through the village was not paved. Dan made it through okay but I got stuck in the mud halfway through and couldn't balance on the bike and had to put my feet down. What followed was a horribly frustrating but hilarious (in retrospect) scenario. My flip flops were being sucked into the mud and as I pulled them up they splattered mud all over me as I tried to push this bike down the road. Eventually one of my flip flops broke so I ended up walking shoeless almost ankle deep in mud through the village full of people. Dan can tell you that I did not find the situation particularly hilarious at the time :>) Despite stifling his laughter he did manage to fix my flip flop and get about 50% of the mud off my shoes when we finally got to the temple. We were greeted by 5 very enthusiastic kids yelling "temple! temple! buy ticket! buy ticket!" We paid our dollar and 25 cents each and then the kids scurried around handing us flashlights, saying "cave! cave!" and pointing to themselves saying "tour guide!" So we dutifully followed them to the cave where we went in and saw the retired headless Buddha statues. And I thought that was all but oh no! These three tiny kids then led us deep into this cave beyond where any natural light could reach. It was kind of steep and slippery at certain sections and they were so cute and polite, offering us their hands if they thought we were struggling! When we came to some interesting stalactites or stalagmites they would point and say "hello! hello!" I am not exactly a huge cave fan so I was happy we didn't see any bats for one, and even happier to see the light of day when our tour guides let us out! We gave them 25 cents each for leading us out to safety, which they seemed happy about, and some gum, which they seemed even happier about. And then we were off again, through the mud, which went pretty much like the way there, but luckily some of the kids working on the ferry helped us clean them off in the river a little before we returned them!
Today we rented a motorbike and went to see some beautiful waterfalls about 30km outside of the city. We got up really early for us because it's a pretty big tourist attraction here and we wanted to beat the rush. They were very lovely, falling into blue/green pools. We contemplated going to the famous caves here this afternoon, but opted for a nap and then sitting in a cafe instead because we were kind of "caved out" from yesterday and were a little worried the motorbike sounded unhealthy! So we gave it back before they could blame us for anything :>) And now we are off for supper....probably overlooking the Mekong again...ahhh....
Love Hanna and Dan xoxo
Hmong Night Market in Luang Prabang
Our tour guides through the caves
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