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Luang Prabang - Days 40-46
We arrived in Luang Prabang the day before Lao new year, we had been told that during Lao new year the tradition is for people to throw water at each other and that we could expect to have water thrown at us a few times during the day. What we did not expect was three days of everyone in the town getting smashed on BeerLao and massive water fights all day everyday! But you know what they say.......when in Lao...We spent two days getting involved in the water fights, we bought a couple of water pistols and joined the fun. I think the pictures will explain far better than I can how much fun we had but it was just crazy, all the locals where on the back of trucks around town soaking everyone in the street and everyone in the street was trying to get them back, all the while everyone was drinking plenty of beerlao, including the drivers of the trucks! It was pure chaos for 2 days, karaoke in the streets, water everywhere, people falling off trucks, tourists who didn't want to get wet being absolutely soaked!
During the fun we met loads of new people as we fought a pitched water battle outside our hotel. Our hotel manager then paid for a tuk tuk for us to take us round the town, I was hanging of the back of it with someone I only knew as french girl at the time while our tuk tuk was being doused in ice water and flour! As well as French girl (Cecilia), we also met some young lads from England and a top guy from Germany Gernot who was staying in our hotel.On the third day of new year we decided to get away from all the water and head to a nearby waterfall with the guys we had met they previous days. It was about a 1hr drive in a tuk tuk to get to the waterfall during which we got soaked by gangs of kids everytime we went through a village! The waterfall itself apart from being very tourist and busy is stunning, its a 7 layer waterfall with sky blue plunge pools at each level. The first level had a rope swing which I got up to have a go on with one of the English lads. On my first attempt I managed to fall of the rope and look like a bit of an idiot. So I thought I should get right back up there and try again, on the second occasion......it was even worse, it was less of a rope swing, more falling in whilst holding a rope. Tina tells me that as I went in to the water there was a wave of giggles from all the local kids and everyone else watching. Of course normally I would be embarrassed by this but as I was underwater at the time I didn't hear the giggles and therefore naturally claim it did not happen. To make it worse Tina then overcame her fears and got up and had a pretty good effort at the rope swing, my embarrassment was only broken by the next girl who went on the rope swing after Tina, who had clearly forgotten in her excitement to do the rope swing that she could not swim. It was pretty scary for a while as she went straight under and and couldn't get back up and had to be saved by a number of random tourists who reacted quickly, Laos health and safety have quite away to go yet!After 3 days of water based excitement we had 3 chilled out days while we recovered and took in a little more of Luang Prabang, this involved hanging out with the guys we had met, checking out a few of the many temples around town, watching the monks parade early in the morning and spending an afternoon being taught how to play backgammon by Cecilia.After 3 days of chilling we were beginning to decide what to do next when we randomly ended up in a tour office being sold a 5 trip around the north east of Laos. The trip took in a few places we were thinking of heading to anyway so that combined with a hefty discount as it was leaving the following day lead us to signing up there and then with Cecilia. We then headed back to the hotel to pack as we were leaving a 7am the next day.
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