Yesterday Suzanne and I woke up early and took walk to get some breakfast while everyone else was waking up. We walked through a small farmer's market where the villagers sell their crops and other assorted handmade good and handicrafts.
The farmers' market
We stopped off at a small picnic table to eat a bowl of noodles, and then took a small side street packed with flowers and plants back to our guesthouse.
Side street
Once everyone was up and moving, we chartered a flatbed truck taxi to go to the Kuang Si waterfall. We bought a lot of fruit from the farmer's market for the one hour drive. It was only 30km away, but the roads were very bad with lots of potholes and sometimes not even paved.
There was a small park at the base of the waterfall with a kind of petting zoo that you have to walk through. There were two cages; one housing a family of Asiatic black bears; the other holding a lone tiger.
James feeding a baby bear
After walking through and checking out the tiger for a bit, we came to the actual waterfall. An enormous, multi-tiered waterfall with a small swimming hole.
Kuang Si Falls
There were many siteseers already there, so we set up camp on one of the wooden docks next to the swimming hole and began eating some of our fresh bananas, lychi, apples, and oranges.
Enda, me, & James halfway up the falls
We met some other familiar faces from our ferry boat and relaxed next to the falls for most the day. Occasionally jumping in for a swim and also climbing up parts for the falls for a cold shower.
James, Olly, myself, Nick, & Enda
On the way back to town our taxi driver stopped off at one of the hill tribe villages where the villagers make different handicrafts to sell to tourist. Once we got out of the taxi a horde of young girls swarmed us with braided bracelets for sale. They were very persistent, so everyone bought at least one out of pity.
Selling bracelets in the Hill Tribe
For dinner I managed to convince James, one of the British boys, to walk with me through the farmer's market so we could eye out some cheap food. All the other guys wanted to eat in a more standard restaurant, so we split up for a bit.
The farmer's market was very lively at night with different tables and stalls set up. We decided on one with a buffet of various Lao dishes like coconut curry, different kinds of noodles & vegetables, spring rolls, baked tofu in a red sauce, baked pineapple, etc. We both loaded up one plate with as much as we could fit for a grand total for 5,000 kip (about 50 cents).
The funny thing about dinner is the number of Japanese folks we met while eating. Every Japanese person I've met so far on my travel sat down and ate dinner with us; including an English teacher and his Japanese girlfriend (Adam & Mayu) I met on the plane from Nagoya to Bangkok.
After dinner I went to a bar/club called The Hive for a few BeerLaos and talked with several other travelers about our experiences in Thailand and Laos.
The Hive
The following day Suzanne and I went walking around town and stopped off at the Wat Xieng Thong for a look around.
Wat Xieng Thong
A closer look
That evening my current team of friends and I will took a night bus north west of Luang Prabang to Luang Num Tha. I'd heard there was great jungle trekking and beautiful country to be seen there.
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