Day 13, Monday 3rd May, Luang Prabang, Kuangsi Waterfall

Having decided firmly not to visit Van Vieng, 6 hours by bus, or Vientiane, a further 3, then to fly from there to Phnomh Penh, I set out to book a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia (where Angkor Wat is) and tried a fourth travel agency (there are about 20 in town). To my surprise there were two seats available on Lao Airlines for tomorrow, Tuesday, and this flight now had the same times as the Vietnam Airlines flight (and not two hours more to collect people in Savannakhet on the way), but the Lao price, well almost as cheap, $185 + 4% credit card usage charge. Whatever, I received a printed ticket for the flight leaving tomorrow at 10:35, arriving Siem Reap 12:00, be there 2 hours beforehand (international flight!) .
Later I emailed a nice hotel with swimming pool in central Siem Reap, where Harald had stayed while there last year, and received a positive reply. And at night after paying the hotel bill here, in cash, in dollars, the lad called his friend, a tuk-tuk driver, who will collect me here tomorrow morning at 8 am and take me to the airport for a prepaid $5.
Cambodia works in dollars, so I changed all Kip to dollars, so I can buy my Cambodian visa to enter the country and access a dollar cash machine.  Here I had to extract Kip, then change them to dollars at a money changer (whose rate, however, was better for me than the hotel's).
The main event today was a half-day trip to Kuang Si waterfall. A 40 minute minibus ride took us along a road improved with international aid to further tourism. There were nevertheless at least 3 rickety wooden bridges to slow down for. Also hills, curves, rivers, villages, plantations of a tall straight tree with yellowish bark and large green leaves, presumably planted in a token attempt to make up for the extensive deforestation that China is giving a helping hand with.
Apropos Chinese, there were three of them on the bus, from Chonquing as it turned out, two women and a rather repulsive (facial expressions, behaviour) man. They talked non-stop, often loudly, all the way there.
Admission was 20.000 Kip (about 2 Euros) for foreigners. The price for locals had been blacked out, to avoid controversy? It seemed a popular picnic place for Lao families and groups.

The waterfall was quite pretty, though now in the dry season not spectacular. Several of us had a long wait for a tourist-free shot of the falls, since our friends the Chinese were cavorting around having their antics immortalised in all combinations of three. They were, however, not the only ones.

The water collected in a series of pools cascading down the valley. I crossed to a path and saw a sign saying "up to the top" and saw some people walking up a pathway. I considered the pros and cons, and set off. After the path got steeper, I asked some people coming down how long it took, they said about  20 minutes, and that it was nice up there, so I continued. The path worsened and became more like rock-climbing, on craggy rocks and slippery earth. No Alpenverein here! I took a few breaks and made it to the top, which was nice but not spectacular. I waded across the top of the falls to see if there was another way down on  the other side, but deeper-looking water blocked me and I went back.

At the top of the path down, I decided I would have big trouble with my wet sandals, so changed to the trekking boots which had been weighing down my rucksack, a wise decision, for a change. I made it down without mishap and continued on down to the bathing area.
Some young people were frolicking under a mini-waterfall, but I only made it about 5 metres away from shore, as the water was opaque and full of rocks. I cooled off in the water for about 5 minutes then took about 10 getting myself dressed again, in a sweat-soaked shirt.
The path continued down past two other, nicer, swimming areas (there were changing cabins everywhere too, I noticed too late). Near the exit, about 8 black bears live in an enclosure and can be viewed. They are "rescued" bears, but I don't know from what.


There are all sorts of nature and environment and social schemes going on to which one is kindly asked (but not pressured) to contribute. One major effort involves trying to deal with a fraction of the problem of unexploded bombs dropped by the US over many years.

The minibus was due to leave at 5 pm. 5 of 10 were punctual, after 10 minutes the 3 Chinese strolled out of a restaurant, then we waited til 5:25 for a couple who had obviously left earlier by other means without bothering to let the driver know. As a result, we missed out on the 20 minute visit to a Hmong village entirely, and only just made it to the Mekong for sunset photos.
Lao street food:

Mekong sunset from Luang Prabang:

Slowboat travellers arriving in Luang Prabang:

A new slowboat load of travellers trudged up the hill with their packs, negotiating with the guesthouse touts and tuk-tuk drivers.

Back at the hotel, while washing clothes, I found a large red stain on one sleeve, and wondered how squashed fruit had got there. Turned out my left upper inside arm was bleeding, I assume from a leech while bathing at the waterfall. I only hope it was nothing nastier, and will keep the spot under observation.
I dined off the main street in a more local place and ate fish Labh. Labh is a Lao dish made of fish, chicken, pork or beef minced up with lemongrass, coriander, galangal and chilli and steamed. Very tasty, I'd had the chicken version in Pak Beng. This one was also tasty, but I found after fishing out the red chilli that there was also a lot of green chilli in it too, so I went on fishing til the spiciness was bearable. I tried sticky rice for the first time, it is coloured violet like Spanish onion and is served in baskets. It is what monks receive from the populace as alms. Tasted fine, and helped neutralise the chilli.
Here is the meal. The menu had mentioned wine by the glass, but this proved optimistic, so I had my last BeerLao:

I worked out how much of what money I would need when, and had a small amount of Kip left over, so I set out to the night market, which was just packing up shop at 10 pm, to buy a souvenir of Laos. It was a small picture of a typical scene with boat on river and woman carrying loads balanced on poles. Small, light, decorative (as if I am ever going to have enough walls for everything ...).