| Luang Prabang |
| After a two day journey, we arrived in Luang Prabang just as the sun was starting to set. We climbed off the boat, loaded on our packs and made finding a guesthouse our first priority. Unfortunately, that proved to be a harder task than we’d anticipated. Every decent guesthouse we went to was full and so our first night in Luang Prabang was spent in a shoebox.
Thankfully,the next morning we found a cute family-run guesthouse and so with a bed and hot shower secured, we were now free to explore the town.
Luang Prabang was as unique and beautiful as all the guidebooks promised but not nearly as big as we’d expected for the second largest city in Laos(there wasn’t even an ATM, not something we had expected…). The town is nestled among green misty mountains and hugs the Mekong river on one side and then the Nam Ou River on the other. The French influences were very visible in the architecture and food as everywhere you looked were red tiled roofs, colonial style villas and an abundance of fresh, hot baguettes. Yet, the temples, art work, night markets and long tailed boats drifting down the river gave it a decidedly Lao feel.
 We spent about five days exploring Luang Prabang with our Swiss friend Rudy. As charrming as the town was, some of the highlights of our stay in Luang Prabang were found outside of the town itself.
We took a bus to the nearby Kwang Si waterfall 30km out of town and were absolutely floored by it’s magnitude and beauty.
  The water flowed from the limestone rocks of the waterfall to pool after pool that formed like huge steps below it. The water was a beatiful shade of blue and it was in these pools that you could swim.
 The following day, we decided to rent bikes and ride to another waterfall that was about 20km out of town.
 On the way, we saw a sign for another waterfall so we decided to stop off for a look. It was quaint compared to the one the day before but beautiful all the same.
 We continued on from there to the next waterfall. When we arrived we had to cross a river by little boats to get toTad Sae waterfall. Although not as tall as Kwang Si, Tad Sae was a sprawling limestone formation set amongst the trees and with turquoise cascades everywhere you looked. The limestone was not slippery so you could go exploring throughout and then take a dip in the deeper parts.
  One night, we crossed the Mekong and climbed to an old, disused temple on the other side of the river for a view of Luang Prabang at sunset.
 This is us before the sunset with our friend Ruedy:
  On our last morning in the city before our 9 hour bus ride to Vientiane, we got up and climbed Mount Phousi, which is really more like a hill smack bang in the midddle of the town that has a beautiful temple on the very top. We were there for sunrise and as you can see, the view was breathtaking.
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