Home of the Chill

It's been a few days since the last post, been stuck short of internet.
We're up in Luang Prabang at the mo, one of the most awesome kicked back places around.

Anyways, the day after tubing, we rented motorbikes and went looking for some caves. The owner of the restaurant we'd been eating at recommended getting a scooter and riding out to the blue lagoon - which is about 7km south of town. We had to pay to ride across the bridge, but after that we were sweet to go whereever. the road was pretty dusty, so we were glad we had motorbikes, as opposed to push bikes. those guys got caked in dust whenever something went past! ha We had what was probably the worst map ever made, a few lines on a piece of paper. We followed it to what we thought was the blue lagoon... well the sign pointed us this way. This "blue" lagoon in reality was more brown and there was no way were going to swim in this mud hole - so we got on our bikes and headed off. When we met up with the main road again, a tuk tuk full of people came past, so we followed them. They led us to the actual blue lagoon, which was awesome. The water was clear, you could actually see your feet - a huge improvement over the other "blue" lagoon we'd found. Oh, if you ever decide to rent motorbikes in Vang Vieng, make sure you wear shoes, unless you don't mind having feet covered in dust. Obviously, we had some fairly dirty feet by the end of it.

we jumped on the bus headed north to Luang Prabang. VIP bus with aircon. The driver must have been trying to save petrol or something, cos the aircon was only on intermittently, so there were some fairly sticky periods along the way. The bus took 6 hours to wind its way through the hills to Luang Prabang, pretty good quality road, but man, there are some hairy corners. you wouldn't wanna drop a tire off the road, cos you'd end up a couple hundred meters down the cliff! we got held up about 10km from the end due to a truck vs truck crash, didn't see it, but we were stuck there for nearly an hour. We ran into John (the american guy we met at Vientiane) on the bus and he knew of a sweet guesthouse to crash at, so we tagged along. Later that night, we ended up going for dinner and a few drinks round town with him and this canadian girl Erika.

Second day in Luang Prabang, the four of us (John, Erika, Tuffy, Me) rented bikes for 10000 kip and road round the city checking out the sights and wats. Luang Prabang is epically chilled (as i said earlier). Most of the locals are doing little chores or just sleeping. Also, if you're ordering food, be prepared to wait. all the river-side restaurants are run by single cooks, with only one or two cookers. the food is awesome and fresh, but takes a while to come out. One thing i've discovered up here are the fruit shakes - these are off the meter! they cost 5000 kip (roughly 60 cents) and are fresh fruit blended with ice. you choose which fruit you want and they blend it all together. It was John's b'day today as well, so we went out for a few beers that night. I highly recommend getting a Tiger Tower of Power. Pretty much a 3L jug with a tap on it. fair to say, it was a slow start the next morning.

Day 2 in Luang Prabang ws a slow start, but tuffy and i sorted out a minibus trip to the Kuang Si waterfalls. Awesome waterfalls that you can swim at. The swim is even more awesome after you climb to the top of the big waterfall and come down all sweaty. there are a bunch of fish in the swimming areas there that nip at your feet, but they're harmless. The drinks places near the big waterfall fleece you tho, so if you go either take your own drink, or be prepared to pay for it - although we're talking about payin $3 for a drink as opposed to $1.50... still it's the principle.

Anyways, i feel i'm rambling on now. No photos this time as i've had to use public computer.
We're flying out to Hanoi this afternoon. One country down. BOOM.