really, really not looking forward to this. luang prabang seems like an eternity ago. the internet is really expensive in laos and has crappy speed to boot. i'm already in vietnam and i saw much of laos. well, here goes.
i arrived off the slow boat and landon was waiting for me, which i did not expect at all. i was still with my group of new friends from the slow boat and saw them off to their guesthouses before nesting in the one landon had already. i relaxed for a bit as the boat isn't the most comfortable place in the world. luang prabang was actuallly alot smaller than i anticipated, but it was really nice, what with the french colonial buildings and all. it was also a bit tidy and i was sometimes reminded of vancouver a bit. something i can't quite describe. anyways, the night begins with a scheduled meeting with a couple we sort of knew in vancouver. sean and jessica. limited meeting with either in the past, it proved to be an interesting night. it was mostly me being really tired from a slowboat trip filled with beer drinking, listening to stories of their recent trip to india. interesting enough, though i soon retired to bed.
the next day i went out and met landon's slow boat gang. a british guy, a german girl, a dutch guy and a french dude. we ate at some cafe called joma which became an excellent staple in our northern laos experience. the plan was to check out the local waterfalls. along our way in the haggling for a better price, we picked up an adorable korean girl who had an unfortunate motorcycle accident and sported a plastic bag on one foot. we eventually got going and arrived 30 mins later to what was at that moment in my life, the most beautiful place i've ever been. before the actual falls, we passed a bear sanctuary. the bears were not quite visible then. we carried on and passed about 3 or 4 different sites for swimming but figured we may aswell keep going until we see the end of our options before settling on one. the end was a massive waterall in which you could NOT swim in, or jump off unless you don't value life much. we opted for the one with the higher waterfall halfway back that you COULD jump off. it also had a rope swing from a diagonal tree. i also noticed that some poor ass had jumped face first from this waterfall without any knowledge of what was below and smashed his ugly little face up real good. i first saw him dabbing his face with a rag or towel.. then he removed it and half his face was red with blood and puffed up. who am i to turn down that kind of fun? i did the swing first and everyone in the water below was rating the swing jumps with 'oooohs' 'ahhhhs' and 'woooooooah!'. apparently i did ok. the german girl was all over this shit taking every opportunity to jump off whatever she could. she eventually dragged me along to the waterfall and we went off that too. it was awesome! the water here was a beautiful, unreal turqoise colour. lush emerald green all around us. it was fantasy. i felt bad for the korean girl who could not swim with her bag foot. we scoped out another pool, the bears and then consumed some beerlao. by the way, beerlao just might be my world champion for beer. typically, tiger beer can be found everywhere in the asian countries i have visited. it's brewed in singapore. other than tiger and the odd carlsburg, beerlao is the only beer you can find in laos. it is excellent.
we left the falls and came back into town. they were already setting up the night market and i knew already that i'dbe buying that sweeet ass chess board i saw on my way home. later that night, it was a night at hive, a popular bar. i bumped into a few friends from my slowboat. few drinks and a bunch of people went to the bowling alley. the bowling alley is the only place open after 11. laos has a legal curfew. pretty lame. so upon exiting the hive i saw tons of shitty drunk tourists piling into tuk tuks and howling mad. i thought to pass the bowling tonight and do it the next night.
i honestly don't remember the next day so i'l skip to the evening. it was back to the hive and this time it was all of landon's slowboat friends and all of mine all together in a group party, which i quite enjoyed. this time we did go to the bowling alley and i got quite drunk and really sucked at bowling and tried to convince landon and some guy from iceland that obama is a puppet and his only purpose is to renew american faith enough so that the real powers that be can screw everyone behind the curtain. i was called extremely negative by the guy from iceland. the night was not without drama as one of my friends had a break up with her boyfriend. i think they're still together so i guess that's ok. the next day, amidst a nasty hangover, we met with the icelandic man again for breakfast and then climbed a mountian called pusshi mountain or something. they view was nice, but the climb was damn hot. we then met with my british friends and a dane to see if we could go to the caves. turns out we were too late. so eventually i got to buying that chess board. it was pricey, but worth it. well, only worth it if it actually makes it back home. which, by the way, cost as much as buying it to begin with. our last night was spent at a place called lao lao where the power went out in the entire city. it was kind of cool but we left early because we were really tired and were leaving the next day. the power returned to the city the moment my key touched the door to our guesthouse. fancy that. the next morning we caught a tuk tuk to the bus station but not before we got some tasty sandwiches for the road from joma. we ended up bumping into johan, our dutch friend at the station and sat with him on the beautiful mountain bus ride to vang vieng.
