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Arrived at 4pm, thought it wouldn't be until at least 5, so that was a nice surprise, but of course the scams start again... Drop off is 10km from town so have to get a tuk tuk for 20,000kip pp and they just dropped us in the middle of town, not even to our guesthouse. By the third local person we asked, we eventually got directions to our accommodation: A Tee Guesthouse. Only a 10min walk but with backpacks and still unsure if we are going the right way, it was a bit of a struggle. The place was nice, room was fine, cool enough at this point not to need the fan. And had the hottest shower since Oz, amazing!! Had to turn temperature down! The little things in life make all the difference. We met with Rob and the three of us had dinner. I could just about handle spaghetti, nothing spicy for me yet.
After the dog stopped barking, we had a great night sleep and slept in until 10am, the first sleep in in a long time and it was needed. Belly still dodgy tho bum not as bad, so we headed out a walk to explore. Had brunch at books&tea, then walked up the main street to the museum, but couldn't be bothered going in. Found the night market that had a few stalls for drinks and sandwiches open during the day, where we realised that baguettes are everywhere (yeh to see bread again) and got a wee smoothie each, then back to the room for a chill out day. We weren't prepared for the heat after the moderate temperatures of Chiangmai and I was getting burnt (and grumpy). So chilled out, updated the blog and done some research for the next part of the trip. We headed out for dinner that night, searching for a restaurant that sold cheap food, but none around. For example: the normal price for nice meal Chiangmai was $4aud and in Luang Prabang $6-8aud. Putting this into perspective, obviously it's cheap but when we have budgeted a low amount for Laos, it was unexpected. Might have to increase the budget. Also a big bottle of beerlaos is 15,000kip or $2.25aud.
The next day, we got up at 10am to find breakfast and be back for 11.30am for our pick up for waterfall trip. Taken by mini bus to Kuang Si waterfall.
So we paid in, got our daily fruit shake and we were off. First stop was the bear rescue centre, random. They had lots of different types of bears here, ones I'd never heard of like the moon bear, who has a lighter coloured patch on it chest. Throughout the sanctuary, it told us about each bear and where they came from. It also educated us on how in Chinese medicine they use bear bile to heal, so some bears are kept in gaged all their life's with a tube down their throats to extract bile; it's just horrible. So we said goodbye to the bears, after taking a few good photos and headed towards the waterfalls. They started firstly with small cascades, that had pools at the bottom, a lovely milky blue colour. They were soo much more beautiful than we had expected, so that's always a nice surprise. They looked like something from the movies. But the water was absolutely freezing, so we just observed. We then walked further in to see the bigger waterfall and it didn't disappoint either. We hiked up the side of the waterfall for about 15mins in flip flops (yes for once Kirstie wasn't prepared) and had a really lovely view from the top. Then back down to meet the driver who wanted to get going. A couple on the bus had hassled him to give us an hour more, because we wouldn't have had enough time to see it in the 2 hours he had given us. Once back in Luang Prabang, we walked upto the temple on the hill for sunset, was really beautiful but packed with tourists. We had dinner at the night market, and it was the best street meat we have ever had; pork, water buffalo and chicken, also a baguette (o yeh, bread again after so long without!) kenny said it was the nicest pork belly he had ever tasted, down a little alleyway near the roundabout. Kenny got a pair of funky thai trousers; we'll see how often he wears them. Had a few beers and got next place booked.
Thankfully today I didn't feel too bad.
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