Day 18 - Do go chasing waterfalls

Apologies to Helen’s legion of followers but it's Matt doing the blog today. Thought it's about time I had a go and also to prove I'm still here and that Helen didn't leave me on the slow boat so she could spend all our money on cooking classes and the rest of her time geocaching.

So today we went to the famous (ish) Kuang Si Falls. It's towards the top of any Luang Prabang to do list and we decided to employ our usual strategy of getting up a bit earlier to try and beat the crowds. Meant we were up at 7 and out the door not long after to try and negotiate a Tuk Tuk to take us up there. It's about a 40 min drive away. Safe to say neither of us will be getting the call to lead the Brexit negotiations any time soon and after some half arsed bartering I realised we were arguing over about 2 quid extra so the deal was done. We'd agreed a price (220k Kip which is about £22, everytime you go to the ATM here you're a millionaire) for the driver to take us up there and then wait for about 5 hrs to take us back. We'd paid a bit more so we had the Tuk Tuk to ourselves and weren't relying on other people holding us up but more on that later.

Anyway after a typically bumpy (and speedy) drive up there we arrived about 8.30. You pay around £2 each to get in and randomly the first thing you see is a bear sanctuary where a number of bears have been rescued from poachers (their stomach bile is valuable in Chinese medicine apparently). There were loads of them just lying about and chilling out, they all looked very calm which was good as at least one of the fences looked very jumpable if they'd put their minds to it.

The falls itself are over three levels and were absolutely beautiful. I'll put a few more pics on FB but they really don't do it justice. The pools on the first couple of levels are the best for swimming in and getting up early paid off as we were able to to swim about with only a handful of other people about. The water is the turquoise colour due to the water running over limestone. It was very clear and no nasties in there apart from a few little fish swimming about, meant you could get a free fish spa if you stood still long enough (we didn't).

After spoiling a recently arrived tour parties perfect pictures by swimming in front of the waterfall for a while it was up to the next level. More of the same but less chance for swimming. Once you reach the third level you can trek up to the top of the fall itself which we did. Bit steep at times but worth it, there was another pool with a swing over it as well as a great view down the main fall itself. Glad we swam in the water before seeing what colour it is before the limestone gets involved.

After a quick rest we decided to hike further up to the spring and cave right at the top. It was about 3km and hilly but again definitely worth it. There was a ‘restaurant’ at the spring which was basically a BBQ and a hut. Food was very good though, (the street food in Laos has been brilliant so far). There was another pool to swim in and unfortunately a rope swing and long log covering the pool that you could try and walk over. Obviously I tried both with Helen (quite sensibly) trying neither. Firstly I swung out on the rope planning to let go at the top of the arc and drop in to the cool water below. Got the angle all wrong and if I'd let go would have dropped on the long log so had to hold on and swing back to the bank where I bumped in to a tree while a French family and the guys working on the BBQ looked on, smooth. Undeterred I tried to walk across the log, twice, and got about a quarter of the way both times before falling in. By this point Helen had had enough and had gone to look at some butterflies.

We then went a bit further up to the Hermit cave. They're very keen on putting buddha statues in pitch black caves in this part of the world and this was more of the same. You hired a flashlight before you went in and it was very dark and a bit creepy and then the flash light reflected on the bald head of meditating monk, momentary panic followed in case we disturbed him or Helen bumped him but turned out it was another of the weird wax works of long deceased monks. We didn't stay long after that.

We smugly hiked right back down to where we started (we covered 12k in total today and the equivalent of 68 flights up). Smugly as it was very busy and the pool we'd had virtually to ourselves was packed. We then made a quick stop at the butterfly park near the entrance to the falls. It's ran by a Dutch couple, it was quite good but got us thinking what prompts you so say ‘I'm moving to Laos to open a butterfly park’. Anyway it was back to the Tuk Tuk rendezvous point where our driver was playing cards with his mates and told us he was waiting for some other customers before we could set off, turns out he'd dropped us off and hot footed it back to town to charge another group for the exclusive use of his Tuk Tuk. Shouldn't be surprised and wouldn't have mattered if some of the other group hadn't gone AWOL. After sitting in the back of the Tuk Tuk in 35 degree heat for half an hour the driver came back and said we'd have to go back with his mate in another Tuk Tuk with six other people but still wanted the full fare. We managed to get a bit of a discount but we're hot and hungry so in we got. To be fair had we not set off then we'd have missed what was honestly a boy no older than ten driving a truck loaded up with the local beer, Beerlao! Quite a sight.

We picked up some food and then had our now customary couple of hours back in the room with the air con. After eating a lot of street food recently we decided to eat out proper and Helen found a tapas place that did a mixture of Laos and international food. It was delicious, one of the best places we've eaten so far. After that it was back home early as per.

We're huge fans of Laos and Luang Prabang in particular. It's such a nice place and so relaxed, we’ll be sad to leave. Close run thing between here and Chiang Mai for my favourite place so far. Last full day in LP tomorrow before we fly to Vientiane Monday and then on to Hanoi on Tuesday.

We've had some more laundry done and they must wash it on 90 degrees as everything is getting smaller but my waistline is also undoubtedly getting bigger. We have over eight weeks left and if both these trends continue worried I'll have to replace everything with the elasticated hippy pants (usually with elephants on) that are so popular with the many gap year types we've seen.

Anyway enough of my ramblings, normal service will be resumed tomorrow with Helen back to tell you about our rice farm experience day.Read more