Luang Prabang twice (and Nong Khlaw) 2nd to the 5th June

Just before I move onto Luang Prabang, I have to share a bit more on Vang Veing becuase I missed one of the best bits. Why the nightlife was lively, the days there were gorgeous. Once you recovered from the hangover, people would take their bikes (or rent off-road buggies) and spend the day at one of the serval lagoons. 

I think we visited two. Essentially these were just nautural pools, formed in series running into each other. My favourite one had lovely seating and a bar for food/drinks. But most excitingly, it had a zip-line and a swing that end in the lagoon.

Jon and I went along to meet up with Billy and some of his friends at lagoon 2. I was pretty excited to try the swing. I climbed the rickety frame, and pulled the swing towards me. I gripped and swung. Immediately into my swing, I thought to myself (kinda in slow motion much like the whale falling to the ground along with the petunias) ‘I really hope I took my glasses off before I did this.’ I release myself from the swing and ungracefully plummet into the water. The first thing I do is feel my face – and relief! My glasses weren’t on my face. I assumed I left them on the frame by the swing, so swam across and climbed once again. When I couldn’t find them I realised the terrible mistake I’d made. 

My glasses were now resting on the bottom of the lagoon…

My friends don’t show much sympathy but Billy steps up and suggests if I can get him some googles he’ll take a look for them. So I ask around the lagoon, explaining my idiocy etc. I aquire a proper snorkelling mask from a lovely Danish family, who wished me luck. I gave these to Billy and while I stood at the top of the swing (stopping people from swinging onto Billy) he started to dive have a look and come back up.

I wasn’t overly hopeful to be honest. The lagoon is deep and murky, and my glasses are transparent. Billy dives four or five times. I’m losing the little hope I had, but dives again. 10-15 seconds pass. Then suddenly my glasses penetrate the water followed by Billy’s arm and eventually the rest of Billy.

As I’d asked around for the goggles most people knew what was going on. And the Lagoon erupts into a moderate applause! I was fucking over the moon. I couldn’t beleive he’d found them – what a hero. Billy didn’t hear any of the applause as he was too busy desperately trying to get his breath back after his lady of the lake act.

I bought him a beer which was the least I could do really. Legend.

Luang Prabang

Moving on from Laos’s party capital, we headed to its cultural capital of Laos Luang Prabang. I found Luang Prabang to be a lovely place, with a very peculiar nightlife scene.

The city / town is filled with temples and is fairly touristy. At night the streets are closed to traffic (mostly) and turn the whole centre of town into one giant market. Where I think every evening I had dinner, and bumped into all sorts of random people (the frenchies from the Thakhek loop, Liv, and the ringer who almost beat me at pool too). And of course, Hatty and Harry who had joined us from Vang Vieng as well.

Prehaps the biggest attraction of Luang Prabang, and potentially Laos, are the stunning waterfalls here. 

Jon had been on trip advisor and found about 6 waterfalls he wanted to see. So we set off to see them and have a swim. He quickly realised, that all 6 were in the same spot which made for efficient sight seeing. 

The pictures will speak for themselves but they were lovely.

We also decided to hike to the top which most people didn’t, and we found a welcome break from the crowds. Jon and I, splurged about £3 on a boat trip to the source as well. To my surprise the captian punted our way there and back.

So, onto the percular nightlife. After the market closes around 11:30, there is only place to go. Oddly enough its a bowling lane about 40 minute walk or a short tuktuk out of town. One night we arrived around 10pm and it was empty but sure enough by midnight its packed and by 1 its rammed.

And its just full of foreigners, all getting drunk and bowling. Late into the evening its like a nightclub. It was so unusual. But I had a really great night with Hatty and Harry bowling a bit, and having a beer.

After Luang Prabang I headed north with Jon to Nong Khlaw but headed home the following day. While a lovely village the only thing to do there was hiking and it was forcast to rain for days.

With my liver in tatters, I knew it time to get out of Laos before any more inrepairable damage was done. My route to Thailand was a fun one, well not fun, but an interesting one. It was time to take the famous slowboat up the Mekong river. The slowboat is part of the traditional banana pancake* route. I’ll leave this adventure for the next blog, but I’ll say now there is a good reason its called the slow boat.

*the banana pancake route, for those who don’t know, is the classic SE backpackers route. Called the banana pancake route, as when the backpacking scene first started banana pancakes were a familiar favourite of the foreigners.