Laos - Luang Prabang

From Chang Rai, I travelled North to Chang Kong on the Laos border. After just one night there, I crossed the Mekong River into Laos and boarded the 2 day slow boat travelling to Luang Prabang.

Unfortunately, I've lost the pictures from the boat and from Chang Kong, including one of an elephant being transported down the river and one of Carolina being attacked by a monkey in Luang Prabang (Dave had to spank the monkey to get rid of it)…but without photographic evidence who’ll believe me?!

This is the museum in Luang Prabang, which was the King and Queen's residence up until they were outsted in the 1970’s. We couldn’t bring in any bags or cameras and had to take off our shoes going in.






The Temple on the grounds of the museum.

Sittong on the steps of the temple on the grounds of the museum – Dave (Clare), Carolina (Sweden), Neil (Burmingham) and “Macca” (Clare).

From Luang Prabamg, we took a tour of the nearby waterfalls. Near the waterfalls were a few bears and a tiger that had been saved from poachers. The bears seemed happy enough but, despite having a relatively big cage, the tiger just walked up and down the same 20 foot path.

Ed, Anna and Gemma on the way up the hill in the centre of Luang Prabang.

Some of the guys swimming at the bottom of the waterfalls near Luang Prabang
The waterfalls were actually a set of abouta dozen falls of varied heights. This was one of the higher sections.

Sunset over the mountains and Mekong river near Luang Prabang

After a few days in Luang Prabang, I went to Vang Vieng to part-take in the noble art of tubing – floating down a river, in a tractor tube, beer in hand, stopping off in various “pubs” along the way to replenish the beer supply and zip along the numerous “flying fox” rides. Arguably, the best way to spend 4 or 5 hours. For this particular adventure, I was joined my Anna (England), Gemma (England) and Simon, Gerry, Jimmy, Neven and Merv (I think), all from Brisbane. A mighty time was had by all.


The "tubing" crew - Anna, Gemma, Merv, Simon, Neven, myself, Gerry and Jimmy.

From Luang Prabang, I traveled to Vientiane. I had planned to spend a few days there but there wasn’t much to do so I left Laos a couple of days early (13th Dec) on a plan to Hanoi in Vietnam. At the airport in Vientiane I met Christina (NZ), who turned out to be alright (who knew there were decent Kiwis out there?!) and we turned out to be travel buddies for over a week while in and around Hanoi.

In front of the Black Pagoda in Vietiane.

Vientiane's equivalent of the Arc De Triumph. Nice view from the top but you weren't allowed to take photos.

One of my better photographic efforts. I can't remember the proper name of this thing right now.