Laos: the best kept secret

Laos has been amazing. The people are incredibly gracious, and the atmosphere just feels different here. I would love to return to Luang Prabang and spend a month just walking the streets and enjoying fresh baked croissants, with a cup coffee, at a sidewalk cafe. The city is the old capital of Laos and still displays its French influence. The “downtown” area has been a designated UNESCO Heritage Site, so the whole area is protected and under strict regulation for development. It really makes for. A delightful place.

Our day started with a quick lesson on Buddhism before touring the Wat Xieng Thong. The temple, built in the 1500’s, was used by the royalty until 1975. It is a beautiful structure and there were very few people at the site while we were there. From the temple, we walked down some stairs, crossed the street, and continued down to the river bank, where a long boat was waiting to take us up the Mekong for the day.

Again, it was just the four of us and the two hour ride was enthralling. The Mekong is surrounded by jungle, where small homes pop up here and there. The banks are farmland during the dry season. The ground is extremely fertile, since the Mekong just dumped a bunch of fresh soil on the shore during the wet season. We saw corn and greens growing on both sides of the water. On occasion we spotted a fisherman, either on his boat or trying to catch fish from the shore. Oddly, we saw no water birds, but there were several buffalo and cows grazing in a few of the open areas, where jungle had been cleared. Our destination was the Pak Ou caves. There are two caves, crammed with over 4,000 Buddha statues. Originally, the king hid the valuable statues in th cave during war, to ensure they would be safe. Since then, the caves have taken on special meaning to the locals and have become a repository for Buddha statues big and small. The first cave is about two stories above the Mekong River. It is a large opening with thousands of Budddhas looking down on the visitor. It there is a nook or cranny, there is a Buddha statue in it. They are everywhere. Another 200+ stairs took us up to the second cave, where there were fewer statues but a much larger cave. There were probably stalactites and stalagmites at one time, but the cave has had a lot of use. It has a few different areas, where the Buddhas are concentrated, but in fewer numbers than the cave below. After walking up the steps, I can see why this cave is visited less than the other. It was warm and humid and the exercise certainly worked up a sweat.

The caves were as far north as we would travel into Laos. We motored back down the river to lunch, where we had a table on the bank of the Mekong. Apparently, and unbeknownst to us, this is the same restaurant where Barack Obama enjoyed fresh coconut juice, during his visit to Laos a couple of years ago. His picture seemed to indicate that the coconut juice was good, but I decided to have a bottle of water. I’m pretty sure I sweat out a liter or two at the caves.

We left lunch for what would become another top 10 moment on the trip. We drove into the mountains to visit Kuangsi Waterfalls. The falls originate from a spring in the mountain. There are three tiers to the falls, which create three pools, where swimming is allowed. The first pool was empty of visitors, and Nic lead us to the second pool. There were some good sized waterfalls feeding this pool, which we were told was a little deeper than the others. There were some basic dressing rooms, where we quickly changed into swimwear. I tossed my towel, grabbed my GoPro, and headed for the thick limb of the tree, where others were jumping into the water. It reminded me a little of Talofofo Falls, where we would go when we lived in Guam; except, the water in Guam was very warm, and I was remembering that this was spring fed, so probably not. I figured it couldn’t be that bad because other people were swimming. So, I climbed up the side of the tree, walked out to the edge of the limb, and mustered up the gumption to jump into the cool water. Wow! Cold! It was cold. Thankfully, it was relatively warm outside, so the water soon felt “refreshing.” We floated around a bit, swam to the back side of one of the smaller falls, and kicked over to the edge, where this pool spills down some smaller falls to the swimming area below. The water was a soft color of blue, and the jungle came right down to it. The place was serene; although Nic said that it gets pretty busy during the middle of the day. Fortunately, it was late afternoon, and there weren’t a lot of people in the area. Once we were properly cold, we slogged over to our towels and repeated the process in the changing room. When I came out of the changing room, Kim pointed at the sign on the tree, where I had leapt into the water: Danger! No Jumping. I swear I did not see it, even though I walked right by it. I hate it when tourists totally disrespect the rules, so now maybe I will tell myself that they just didn’t see the sign.

Once we were packed up again, we walked up to the next pool, which is fairly shallow, with smaller falls. Again, there was no one swimming in this pool, so we took a few pictures of the water. It was just a short walk up to the final fall, or the first fall, depending on how you look at it. This is the first fall that comes from the originating spring. It is about 150 feet high and fairly wide at the bottom. It crashed into the pool with enough vigor to spray visitors on the bridge over the pool. We took lots of pictures but mostly just enjoyed standing there and watching the water seemingly fall from the sky. What a great way to end the day!Read more