Phousi Hotel Luang Prabang

... over some daunting rapids. Fortunately we made it back unscathed and this added to what had already been one of the highlights of our trip in South East Asia.

What a three days, spending so much time in the company of these magnificent creatures, riding, bathing and feeding them was so memorable, an experience never to forget.

Here are the photos.

Next stop, a visit to Luang Nam Tha and some trekking to meet indigenous hill tribes.

... 1504;ו 14; הזיכר 93;ן שלי: גלים עוטפי 01; את המעגל המסתו 89;ב במהיר 93;ת ממש מלפני 04;ו. אני צועק להתחי 00; ל ...

... night.
Today I went to the waterfall just outside of town. It was unreal. Waterfall after waterfall, and pools galore. We waded around, jump off cliffs, and used the rope swing for a few hours before heading back to town. It was a lot of fun. Now, I'm just relaxing for a bit before we all get ready and head to the bowling alley again. Tommorow I will be heading to Vang Vieng for the infamous tubing down the Mekong River.

... to either of those places and I doubt I ever will.
But again I digress, a picture perfect night for me would be having dinner at a little local place that I just learned about last night that serves a cheap and amazing chicken and vegetable stir fry, then a few hours of competitive volleyball with no injuries and no balls going into the river or neighbor's yard. That about wraps up a day in the life here in Luang Prabang, plus a few little stories tied in there...
4:51PM August 4th, 2009

The day started with a welcome lie in (or lay in as PopEye (Rich Wakely) likes to call it) for many whilst other more adventurous groups rose early to stroll around the day markets of Luang Prabang. Potty Mouth (Chasha) and Gilly (Gilly West) did an amazing job of finding luxury accommodation for everyone to move into ending up with the Baker's getting the honeymoon suite but still keeping it under budget. iPhone (Jon Roberts) and Scotsman (Ali Court) also tried ...

... lit night market was a pleasure to walk around even though it seemed that most of the stalls were selling ruffly the same items.
During the course of our stay we met a couple of Aussies, Alice and Jack and one afternoon, along with many others, we decided to visit some local waterfalls. I can't remember how many people squeezed into the pickup truck that afternoon, but I opted for my normal hang-out-of-the-back-trick, standing on the foot ...

... found a room that had 3 beds, one double and 2 singles. So here it was. 4 people and 3 beds, so if we didn't want to share a bed and also not have to single anyone out and telling them to get lost..(basically the German girl being the first choice!), it was an awkward time. So here it was... We let the Girl have one of the single beds and we (3 guys) would draw straws for the other one. Milo won and so it was, the 2 Brit boys having to ...

... Mary Poppin's bike look like a world class mountain bike!

I guess you get what you pay for, so it's either 1000 Kip (GBP 0.60) for a 'city bike' or 6000 Kip (GBP 3.50) for a 'mountain bike'.

Unfortunately we didn't see any mountain bikes for hire until an hour into our rental of the pretty useless 'city ...

... We all duly shook the sticks and pocketed the small squares of encoded paper - something which I came to regret dreadfully in the near future.

But we didn't need to leave the city to entertain ourselves. The temples of Luang Prabang are of such astounding beauty that I'm not even going to try to describe them. The atmosphere within the wat enclosures, scattered with quiet monks and blossoming bougainvillaea, is calming and conducive to reflection. Not all people feel this ...