Maly Villa Luang Prabang

... br><br><br><br>Being<br>out in the forest today we realized we hadn't discussed one important<br>aspect of traveling in SE Asia on our blog &#8211; the squat toilet. The<br>first time we encountered it was in Bali, Indonesia and we've been<br>using them ever since. Most of the time the squat toilets are<br>located in a dark hut in the back of the house/building etc. There<br>is a porcelain urinal and lines on the side of the urinal indicating<br ...

... of the town to visit the Kuang Sii waterfalls, which we reached via a few hours trek through rice fields, small villages and forest. We arrived at the top of the falls, where we walked out over the precariously slippery rocks secured by a rickety wooden fence &#8211; it may or may not have held our weight but thankfully we didn&#8217;t have to put it to the test &#8211; to peer over the edge at the water cascading ...

... the very best of Lao. I could see myself staying here for a very long time (and I did! relatively...6 days was the longest I'd spent in any one place since leaving Tibet). <br>While there I visisted the Kuangsi waterfall not once but twice. 10km or so outside of LBP, Kuangsi is not one but a series of tiered waterfalls--gorgeous light light blue water tumbling over rocks into deep swimming holes, flowing downriver and falling again. I walked all the way upriver, stopping ...

... we've spent anywhere yet!<br><br>It is really hot here, about 35degrees, and it has rained a few times too, but the climate is very tropical, and even when it rains it is still really warm.<br><br>We spent the first 3nights in Vilays guesthouse, run by Vilay, a Laos woman and her French husband Ben. Really nice couple, and although the room was a smart double with French decour, and only $9 a night, they never emptied the bins, changed our towels, and the shower was ...

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... out at 10 pm. So as we were finishing up some drinks, it went pitch black. The restaurant lit some candles for us and we continued on our way. Now when I say pitch black, it was literally pitch black. I couldn't see 2 feet in front of me, and our only source of light was a lighter. We finally found our guesthouse after about 20 minutes of walking up to several buildings looking for our place.<br> The next morning ...

... enforces a curfew here at midnight. Bars and restaurants close at 11:30 as to give people ample time to get home and go to bed. The government realizes the amount of money that tourists bring, so they allow western places like the bowling alley to stay open. So tourist also, are allowed to be out past midnight, as long as they aren't acting ridiculously drunk and stupid. <br> I got to witness both the disco and the bowling alley in the same night one time hanging out with ...

... i was going North. For they may think it was all just a dirty ploy to snag a boat ticket! Well that i would deal with, only if we actually got there in one piece! <br> At the boat terminal we had the customary Laos 'unscheduled/no valid reason' wait of 2 hours, with no-one having a clue what was going on. So beer Laos was broken out yet again! Eventually we boarded the pathetic looking speedboat, that was set to take us off at 60kph for 7 ...

... lights went out at 10 pm and it was wonderfully quiet. I slept great!<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>< br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> The next morning we boarded the boat once again and had another lazy day on the river. I felt so lucky to be there! It felt adventurous and remote and was incredibly beautiful.

... br><br>For perhaps a hundred kilometres we tore along Route 13 through hills stripped bare of trees by the loggers (I was later to see small-scale slash-and-burn agricultural land clearances and the result was nothing like as bad as what we saw in these hills) and through small bans whose inhabitants were busy cutting the fresh green leaves of elephant grass and stacking it by the roadside. Our bus driver, too concerned about meeting his deadline for the fussy falangs, raced ...