The first couple of days in Luang Prabang were spent touring the many temples in the city. There is a daily procession of Buddhist monks along the streets, accepting offerings from the citizens. They give the monks rice or bananas and the monks wear pots around their necks to accept the food. We woke up at 6 am one morning to witness the parade of orange robes through the streets.
Luang Prabang also has a bustling night market every evening from 5:30-10, and we spent most evenings shopping the streets and eating in the open air restaurants. At first it was very tempting to buy everything, but night after night we saw the same things and lost interest. Besides, I'm not interested enough to negotiate a price back and forth for something that's only worth $2 anyway. I did buy a couple of bracelets though.
One day we decided to rent bikes and attempted to visit a popular waterfall just outside of town. Given instructions on how to get there by some German tourists, we rode through the heat and into some nearby villages. The ride was hot and uphill, and there were no signs of a waterfall... until we'd gone quite a ways, and still the sign did not advertise the waterfall we'd been told to visit. It cost us 20,000 kip each but we'd ridden so far that we decided to go beyond the front gate. Inside we were among less than a dozen visitors. We walked along a path through the jungle that led us to a trickle of water, certainly not what we were expecting. The bugs began to swarm and it only took me a few minutes to run back to the bikes. We stayed only long enough to get some pictures of the bombs that decorated the front of the "restaurant". Cycling almost entirely downhill to town we eventually found the "real" waterfall, but spent the rest of the day on our bikes just exploring the peninsula and catching a pretty awesome sunset.
The next day we were convinced to go check out another waterfall and we hopped in the back of a truck with 4 other backpackers and off we went, in a totally different direction from the previous day. This waterfall was the real deal (and also cost 20,000 kip). There were several tiers of water that poured down into a clear pool where swimming was allowed. The rope swing was a highlight. Before climbing to the top of the falls and playing in the water, Pete and I grabbed some lunch outside of the waterfall area. Pete got his trusty "Sandwich Style Lao" and I ordered my stand-by, fried rice. We ate then enjoyed a few hours under the trees, avoiding the heat and sun.
We knew we had only a couple of days left in Luang Prabang, so later that evening we shopped around for other activities to keep us busy. There is a popular tour company that offers "green" travel, and they had a kayak trip going out on Friday, our last day in Luang Prabang. For $23 each we were going to spend a day kayaking with a stop for lunch in a village.
But Friday morning came and Pete and I were slowly being destroyed by our waterfall lunches from the day before. Without going into much detail, we were taking turns running to the bathroom. However, we are budget travelers and we'd already paid for our kayaking trip. There was no possibility of a refund. So we joined a small group and three tour guides in a truck, packed it with kayaks and gear, and drove an hour and a half to the start of our river journey.
Along the way Pete and I started feeling better, so we began our trip with optimism. But this was short lived. With helmets and life jackets on, we paddled along the river following our tour guide. Within 15 minutes we approached rapids. This explains the helmets. We watched the couple in front of us go through the rapids backwards and I thought, "Oh, they must be inexperienced... ha ha ha." Then it was our turn, and before I could tell what was happening, we were tipping. We both fell out of our kayak in the middle of the rapids and bobbed along like idiots until we could grab onto our boat and compose ourselves. Pete enjoyed pointing out that my toes weren't pointing down river (the one and only safety instruction given us by our guide). After surviving the fall, we managed the next set of rapids like pros. In fact, we were the only ones who didn't capsize. But the river continued to throw us kayakers around and Pete and I ended up swimming once more before it was all over.
By lunch time Pete's health was starting to slip again. I have never seen anyone look so green. I paddled us to shore and he wobbled off the kayak. Lunch was served but all I could stomach was the sticky rice. Pete ate only a banana, which he quickly puked onto the beach. Moments later, a flock of chickens enjoyed the pile. Our guide asked, "Was it food or the whiskey?" but he didn't seem to believe it was food causing Pete's ailments. The guide did, however, rub Tiger balm on Pete's tummy. Something else I'd never seen - a man rubbing something on Pete. After a long lunch break we got back in the kayaks, Pete laying back while I did the work.
There was a very special highlight though and it included a group of kids swimming in the river as we passed. They seemed excited to have strangers paddle by, and they began chasing our boats along the riverbank, practicing their English. Happily they shouted, "I love you!" and members of our kayak group shouted back, "I love you, too!" One little boy grabbed onto the back of a kayak for a short ride. It was a very sweet moment.
Pete and I both thanked God that there were no more rapids, but we did get a good scare at the end of the ride when the surrounding hills shook with a succession of booms. We were in an area where cluster bombs from the "Secret War" remain hidden underground, so Pete and I were naturally expecting that this is what we'd heard. Luckily it was just the blasting of a mountain for mining.
Out of the kayaks and back in the truck Pete was starting to get some color back in his face, but it was my turn for torture. During the 45-minute ride back to town I was consumed with thoughts of disaster. All I wanted was to be back in our hotel room with a private toilet. And just minutes outside of the city, my head started spinning and I got hot. It's the feeling you get when you know you're about to vomit uncontrollably. Then I did. I leaned out the side of the truck and barfed multiple times onto the street, on the sidewalk, in a driveway... it was bad. I think it was then that the tour guides finally believed it was food poisoning.
Then, just to add insult to injury, we got back to our hotel room to find the electricity was out. No fan. We lay on the bed moaning and chugging water. Pete, the hero that he is, went across the street in a zombie-like state and bought us some crackers and 7-Up. The remainder of our stay in Luang Prabang involved a dark hotel room and crippling stomach pains. We were pretty sure the owners of the hotel thought we were a bit nuts after not emerging for 14 hours (remember, we're the only customers), but the owner gave us a gift bag on our way out on Saturday because we'd stayed so long. The flight to Hanoi wasn't great, but it was only an hour. More on our recovery in Hanoi later...
