Luang Prabang to Huay Xai, Laos

Luang Prabang was relaxing and pleasantly touristy. We enjoyed some great food and took in the relaxing pace of things. We didn't really do too much there, we had a nice hotel on the Mekong and walked around the city enjoying the hundreds of Monks, temples and French colonial architecture.

On a couple of mornings we did get up early to watch the procession of monks collecting alms, which was quite a beautiful sight. Each morning starting at 6am the locals would get out their straw mats with bowls of sticky rice. They would kneel as the monks formed long processions down the streets, bowls in hand, receiving hand outs from the generous citizens of Luang Prabang. A really beautiful time of the day.


We did spend an afternoon visiting some beautiful multi-tiered waterfalls, 34km's from town. The rainy season had really swamped the place though. The picnic area would have been great, with some scuba gear. Although it might have been a good idea to take down the sign which indicated the area for swimming. This swimming area looked like a giant angry bubbling witches brew ready dissolve all those who enter, really not safe. We did talk to a guy later who thought he would give it a go anyway, 'it must be safe, after all there is even a sign saying 'swimming area.''(!) He got sucked under in a bad undertow and pinned at the bottom for what he reckons was about 20 seconds before being spat out downstream just before the next serious drop of the multi tiered waterfall. He then decided that it was probably a bad idea to swim. People are funny sometimes. If you put up a sign at the top of the waterfall saying 'Jump off waterfall here,' I wonder how many people would just plunge to their death, simply because the sign (an indication of some sort of all knowing authority) told them too.

So, other than a lovely bicycle ride through some local villages on the other side of the Mekong we didn't do to much in Luang Prabang, just laid low plodding around the city, at night we would wander around what is surely the worlds most peaceful and calm night market, absolutely lovely. After a few days of this we bought a ticket to travel up the Mekong river towards Huay Xai near the the Thai border, but we would first have to spend a night in Pak Beng, a rough little transition town that is halfway between Luang Prabang and Huay Xai.

The river trip was amazing, mostly for what we didn't see; signs of human development, there was so little of it. No bridges no real towns, just a few small grass hut villages. Along the river were hills of jungle that reached out from the river banks and stretched as far as we could see, sometimes over several layers of hills and mountains. The river itself ran strong and brown with silt, some areas had extremely strong currents with rapids and whirlpools, a reminder of the force at which this beast, the Mighty Mekong moved through the landscape.

After two days on the river and one night in Pak Beng we arrived in Huay Xai, a town of little interest, except for one small office which we went to visit. It was the office for the Bokeo National Reserve Forest and The Gibbon Experience. We had heard of the Gibbon Experience when traveling in Nepal, we were told it was a super little adventure but had decided not do it for financial reasons. I thought we could just see if there was any last minute spots and if so maybe we could get a deal. Anyhow, shortly after we were scheduled to leave the next morning for the Gibbon Experience, a decision that resulted in us having one of best times we have had yet.