So Luang Prabang.. We took a tuk tuk to our guesthouse, our room was nice a bit small but ok. It was late by the time we got ourselves 'settled', so we dashed out to get some grub. On the main street of LB they have a night market, very similar to the Thailand markets - they sell pretty much everything you could ever possibly want - silk, tee shirts etc. It is Cookie heaven again!

The first couple of days in Luang Prabang we just chilled out a bit, mainly wandering around the town and getting our bearings as well as walking alongside both of the rivers which meet here. It is a really lovely town with beautiful French influenced architecture everywhere - except for the Wats of course. There are also a lot of travellers here and because of that thius town is a little more expensive than elsewhere in Laos - but the market was still cheap! We bought beautiful silk and wooden ornaments.

On the Friday we got up at 5.25am to go and watch the monks receiving alms from the local people; as we were walking up the street we were kind of harrassed by a local woman who didn't speak much English and in our sleepy and unalert state we somehow ended up on the street with the locals, offering the bananas and rice the woman had just given us to the monks. Although that may sound like a really nice way to get involved and learn about Buddhist culture we actaully felt very awkward and out of place. It felt fake and intrusive but it was too late to back out...so we just had to learn from our mistakes!

We also visited Kuang Si waterfall which is just outside Luang Prabang. After much bartering with a tuk tuk driver we hooked up with some other travellers and went up there. It was spectacular and as you can see from the photos it was in full flow due to all of the rain we'd had. It was so powerful and very beautiful, but that did make swimming a little difficult, but we did manage to scramble across the bridge and up the other side of the fall - getting extremely wet in the process!! By the waterfall there is also a bear rescue/sanctuary place where we saw more Asiatic Black bears; they are very lovely and seemingly loving animals - just lazing around in the sunshine and climbing trees. There used to be a Tiger here too but apparently he died a while ago. This wasn't the only wild animal we saw that day either...as we were just on our way back to the car park Jo stopped very suddenly and grabbed my arm all in one movement as a snake was silently sneaking up on a large lizard - in the middle of the road right in front of us!! Our footsteps must have roused the lizard who just got away with his life by a split second, and the snake skulked off before we could get a photo (very unsporting).

The next day we again doubled up with some other travellers to take a (longtail) boat trip to Pak Ou caves. The journey took 2 hours to get there going against the current but as usual it was very scenic. The caves are just small but they house hundreds of Budda statues - like a kind of dumping ground for unwanted Buddhas, it is very strange. on the way back the boat driver took us to one of the viallages that make Lao whisky (which is very famous in Lao!), here I tried some sweet rice wine but gave the Lao whisky a miss as apparently it tasted like turps!!