After a VERY long day at the airport in Hanoi I finally arrived at my guesthouse in Luang Prabang, Laos. Originally I had planned to go to Vientiane, however the only other flight that day went to Luang Prabang. Praise God that I missed the flight to Vientiane though! I had an amazing time in Luang Prabang and while I have no idea what Vientiane would have been like, I am very thankful that things happened the way they did. I met some more great people, in particular a girl from Israel, Shachar, we became fast friends which was really good!
I spent my first day in Luang Prabang, just taking in the scenery and enjoying the small town feel. I walked around and visited a temple then found a really nice spa where I had a sea salt body scrub, aromatherapy massage and facial all for only $40! Afterwards I went to the French café next door and enjoyed a delicious tomato and pesto panine with salad. I spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing and I was very happy to be able to chat with a good friend via good ole Skype!
On Sabbath I hiked with an American guy, Daniel, and our guide, Akong to Kan Sai Waterfall. It was amazing! It was raining and muddy along the way but once we got to the waterfall the rain had stopped, although by that point it didn’t really matter since we were all completely drenched! It was fun and we had an adventure, slopping through sticky mud, getting completely soaked, crossing a bridge that was missing half of it’s planks, taking a side track to a little cave and eating lunch right on the waterfall, then climbing across and up and down the waterfall, swimming in the swimming hole at the bottom of the waterfall and meeting the bears in the wildlife enclosure!! I had a really good day! I was exhausted by the end of it and crashed for like 3 hours when I got back to my guesthouse, but it was totally worth it!
That night Shachar and I met some guys from England, America and Argentina. We all had dinner together at the market, 10,000 kip (about $1.20) for a plate you can fill as high as you want! And most of it was vegetarian!
On Sunday I had another amazing day! I did a Mahout course at the Elephant Village. A Mahout is the guy/girl (usually a guy) who trains the elephants. Usually a Mahout is with one elephant for their entire life.
First we got in the basket on the elephants back. I was with an American guy, Michael. Our elephant’s name was Mae Kham. She was 36 and our Mahout had been with her for 25 years! Since he was about 10 or 11! We went for an hour elephant ride across a river and through the bush. Michael and I each got to have a turn of riding on Mae Kham’s neck.
After we came back we got to feed our elephants bananas. Then we had a lesson on climbing up onto the elephant’s neck and some basic commands, Stop, Back, Right, Left.
Then we had lunch and after lunch we each got our own elephant and Mahout and climbed up onto the elephant’s neck and took our elephants down to the river to bathe them! It was so much fun! Then after the elephants had a bath it was our turn to have one! We went swimming in the nice pool they also have there.
I had an amazing day learning how to ride an elephant properly!
Well, that’s basically it for Laos! The next day I flew back to Siem Reap and now I’m getting back into the swing of things at school!
After so much luxury on my holiday it’s going to take a couple days to get back into showering at the pump, no electricity, humidity with no air conditioner, and bugs galore!
Around Luang Prabang
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| All the offerings for the gods |
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| quiet streets of Luang Prabang |
