I arrived in Laos!!! The best decision I cold have made was to fly from Hanoi to Luong Prabang instead of taking the 24 hour bus.  For $100 more I spent exactly 19 hours less time traveling from door to door than my friend who took the bus.  The flight experience was wonderful except for the 1.5 hour line to get through immigration and security.  I had a seemingly large ammount of VND left (2000,000) and was worried I would have trouble getting rid of it in the airport.  Turns out the airport runs on American dollars and the places charge American prices.  So I didn’t even have enough money to get  full combo at Popeyes and had to settle for a chicken sandwich and a drink.  I boarded my flight and woke up in Laos.

My Laos visa experience was uneventful except for the fact that Canadians have to pay the most our of any other country in the world.  Canadians pay $42 for their visa and 90% of the other countries in the world pay $30 and in rare cases $35.  I need to do some reading on what Canada did to make this a thing, but I am sure I will figure it out eventually.

I got my visa with no issues and continued to the outside world anxious to get me some kip.  Kip is the currency of Laos and is actually pretty confusing because similar looking bills have orders of magnitude different values.  The exchange rate is approximately 8000 kip to $1 USD so once you kind of get your head around that, it makes things a little easier.

My first stop was to the ATM to get some afformentioned kip.  I was told you go outside and saw a bank of ATM machines.  I picked one, inserted my card and nothing happened.  I pressed every button on the machine and waited for several minutes, but no luck, the machine had eaten my card!  Luckily there was a sign on the wall which provided contact numbers and a map to the location of the bank so I went inside to the information booth and they provided me with a phone to call them.  The lady on the other end spoke some english and said they couldn’t get someone out to the airport today but to call back tomorrow.  I was really hoping that the machine did not spit out the card randomly but what who knows.  Luckily I have backup debit cards and was still able to withdraw money, but the fee from the bank was $5 and the international fee was $3.50 so it cost me $8.50 to withdraw money when my other card has no fees and refunds you the ATM charge.  Kind of annoying, but at least I was able to withdraw money.

Armed with a fresh wad of cash, I jumped in a Tuk Tuk and took off for town.  I arrived at my hostel which was called the chill riverside hostel and that is exactly what it was.  Great views of the river and a really chill atmosphere.  I decided to make the rest of the day pretty chill and so decided to do some writing.  I met a guy from Poland named Andrzej who was reading a lonely planet book and asked him where the book told him to go for food.  He said he was going to go get some at this place across the bamboo bridge and asked if I wanted to join.

We set off to find this restaurant and had to cross a bamboo bridge to get there.  The bamboo bridge is only erected in the dry season when the river is lower and is built by a family who then operates it for 5000 kip per return trip.  The restaurant was actually really cool, it was built on the bank of the river and had several little huts and areas where you have to take off your shoes and sit on the floor.  They have Laos Fondue which was basically like hot pot where they bring you some veggies and a plate of thinly sliced meat and you cook the veggies in the soup around the paimeter and cook the meat on the top.  They had hot coals underneath as a heat source.  We got the buffalo and it was really good.  The soup that we created at the end was also very delicious.  The whole experience was awesome and only cost $7 for food and beer, despite it being a fancier place.

After dinner we went to the night market and walked around before heading back to the hostel to call it a night.

We had heard that the thing to do in Luang Prabang was to visit the Kuang Si waterfall which is a beautiful area a few km out of town.  We had heard that it gets a bit crowded in mi day so we got up a bit earlier and headed into town to find some people to split a Tuk Tuk at 8am.  Turns out findind at least two other people who were going to the waterfall that early was more difficult than planned.  We were told by all of the drivers that they had groups coming at 9am and to come back then.  We had spotted a transportation provided by our hostel for 10,000 kip less than the tuk tuks were offering leaving at 9am so decided to just go back to the hostel and try that.  This turned out to be a 14 person mini bus and we were the first pick up.  We drove around town fro 35 more minutes before finally departing for the waterfall.  It took about 45 minutes to get there and once we arrived we were told that we would have 2 hours to explore.  When you get your own tuk tuk you negotiate with them how long you are going to get to stay and so this was a bit shorter than expected.  Oh well.

It costs 20,000 to get in and just inside the gate there is a bear sanctuary where they have rescued bears they are taking care of there.  You then stroll up the path a bit and you get your first look at the many cascading waterfalls and pools.  The main fall is pretty impressive actually and very soothing to enjoy.

There was a path which ascended the falls and brought you up to the top for a great view.  I had also been told about a secret waterfall which was basically a secluded pool in the middle of the main falls.  There is a miss able path at the base of some stairs with a barbed wire fence trying to prevent people from going there.  There was a small hole in the fence though so of course we had to check it out.  It was as promised and there was nobody else there.  I was excited to go for a swim and was all ready to jump in when a guy on the other side of the river started yelling and waking a stick on a tree.  I’m not sure if his job was to get people not to go there or if he just happened to be passing through but he was obviously not happy that we were there.  I don’t think he would have done anything more than yell, but it would not have been a very fun swim knowing there was a guy watching you who was unhappy.  We left the secret waterfall and headed down to the official swimming area.

After a quick swim, it was already time to head back to the bus.  You for sure need at least 3-4 hours there to not feel rushed and properly enjoy it.

Upon returning to town we grabbed some food at the market and then set off to check out some of the temples in town.  After a lot of walking and a lot of temples, I headed back to the hostel for some decompression and to prepare myself for my evening run.

After my run, Emily had arrived into town from her 24 hour bus trip from Hanoi and we decided to get dinner.  She had met a belgium girl in her hostel named Tawnya who also joined us.  We ate on the top floor of one of the taller buildings in town, with a nice view of the night market.

After dinner we headed to the trendy tourist bar in town for a drink before calling it a night.  The bar was by the river and had lounge areas for groups to chill.  I met a guy from Winnepeg that just graduated from Toba engineering.  We knew some of the same people and talked about engineering a bit.

The next day I woke up early for the monk offering which I write about here in a mini post.

After the monk procession, I went for a run outside of town and then called to see if my bank card was available for pickup.  The guy on the phone said to drop by the bank today so once 9am rolled around, I decided to just run there and took off on a bonus run.  When I got to the bank it was closed and there was nobody around.  I ran back to a boutique hotel nearby and had the guy there call the number posted.  Apparently the bank guy was doing some errands and would be back so I had to wait.  30 minutes later and the guy came out of a truck with a rifle and started walking toward me.  I guess he was doing some official bank business and needed protection or something.  Anyways, the guy behind him in the truck HAD MY CARD!!! I really didn’t think I would be seeing that card again.  I just need to monitor that account fairly closely to make sure nothing gets charged to it.  I don’t have much money in that account anyways so it should be fine.

^Views from my run

After getting my card, I decided to have a chill day by the river and did a bit of planning for the coming days.  I booked my next hostel and bus and then got ready to depart for my sunset cruise.  There is a hill in the center of town which is perfect for watching the sunset and so hundreds of people go up there for the sunset and it get’s very crowded.  I decided to do a boat trip instead which was about $10 and took us on the Mekong for about 2.5 hours.  It was so chill and the views were stunning.

We got a seat at the front of the boat in this lounging section.  Met two more people and ended up going to dinner with them after the tour.  One of the most intriguing things I learned on this ride was that being a model for sizing is an actual job.  One of the girls is a perfect 34b and so she wears clothes and provides feedback to the people making them.  She works mostly in the underwear and bathing suit areas.  She’s also lived all over the world doing this and is currently living in Hong Kong.

After dinner everyone was pretty tired so we call decided to go to bed.  I had booked at 6am bus ride in the morning so wanted to get to bed at a decent time.  My journey continues south the Vang Vieng which is known for it’s party scene and eco adventures.

Final Thoughts and tips on Luong Prabang (A new section I decided to add which will include tips and tricks and anything I picked up about a place so if anyone is going there they can learn from my experience and what other travelers told me.)

• Go to the waterfall it is pretty chill and you don’t really notice the tourists.
• Check out the secret waterfall in the middle.  The path is right at the base of the middle section of stairs about halfway up.
• Get up early and experience the monks offering
• I didn’t go up the mountain at sunset as there were reports of way too many people having the same idea.  I opted to do a sunset boat tour instead
• Don’t use the JDB bank ATM at the airport, it might eat your card.