Luang Prabang, Laos

Nov 28: off to Luang Prabang
We hopped on our bus to Luang Prabang and quickly discovered that the bus had no air conditioning (yay!). Luckily, we were next to a window, which we opened (to our dismay, this often meant there was lots of dust in our faces, but it was worth it for the nice breeze). The seats were uncomfortable, but otherwise it was a rather uneventful 7 hour journey to Luang Prabang (except for one stop we took at the top of a mountain--it had a great view). After arrival, we grabbed a tuk-tuk and found a hostel. Then, we searched for dinner. We found a really cool night market nearby, with ladies selling food for $1.25 a plate. Basically, there are 10-15 huge bowls of stuff, you spoon it onto a plate, then she adds sauce and heats it up for you in a wok. Delicious. Afterwards, we did some shopping at the nearby market and then headed to bed.

Nov 29: Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang is a gorgeous little town, basically on a peninsula in between two rivers. The main part is composed of about 3 parallel streets with french architecture. We spent most of our first day just wandering through the streets and visiting temples. We hiked to the very top of the hill in the center of town with a temple on top. At the bottom, ladies were selling little sparrows you could set free at the top. After seeing the Monday-Sunday Buddas, we headed down the mountain. Our further wanderings brought us to a used bookstore. (p.s. we've decided a lot of bookstore owners are crazy). We also discovered the cooking class next door, which we signed up for. We headed back to the night market for some more food, and settled on some amazing grilled fish and some delicious bbq pork (we've become very fond of 1) bbq 2) being served a whole entire fish, head and all). We also had some amazing little fried coconut/rice balls/pancakes and a fruit shake.

Nov 30: Pak Ou (Budda) Cave
We booked a tour to take us up the river for about an hour or so (we hadn't really considered that we would be on this river for about 16 hours total a bit later in the week) so we could visit the Pak Ou Caves. On the way, we stopped at a whiskey village, where the locals produce their famous lao-lao, or rice whiskey. We watched it being distilled and also sampled the 15%, the 55% and the 'black rice' variety. Then, we pressed on to the caves. The caves were pretty lame by themselves, but they were filled with over 4000 buddhas--many of them damaged--which have been donated by the locals over the years. Although impressive because of the sheer numbers of buddhas, we were a bit disappointed because it was ridiculously toursity. We snapped a few pictures and hopped back on the boat, and headed back to town. We spent the rest of the afternoon searching for a better bookstore to swap our books (10 books down...and counting!) and wandering through the town. We decided to treat ourselves for dinner, and shared a buffalo steak with green peppercorn sauce...mmmm. Then we had a nice long internet session and headed to bed.

Nov 30: Cooking Class!
We had been warned not to eat too much, since we would basically be eating and cooking all day. We had a quick bowl of noodle soup and headed for the kitchen! We met our cooking companions for the day: Dominik and Claudia (a super awesome couple from the german part of Switzerland), Brian and Vincent (a gay couple from Ireland but living in Syndey...they are about to open a wine bar) and Colleen (a raw food/vegan from colorado). We started by taking a tuk-tuk to the market and "buying" all of our ingredients (basically, our cooks pointed out all the ingredients they would be buying for us). Then we headed back to the kitchen for a tea break, and then we started cooking. First, our instructors demonstrated what we would make, and then we'd make it ourselves. First we made Luang Prabang salad (we were a bit disappointed that we were making a salad. cmon, everyone knows how to do that...but it was actually quite good) and fried wide egg noodles with chicken and vegetables. We breaked for lunch and some more coffee and ate our creations. Then, it was time for 'dinner' even though it was barely 1! The instructors demonstrated 3 dishes, and we picked 2 to cook. Then he demonstrated 2 more dishes, and we picked 1 to cook. Then he showed us how to make the delicious traditional Laos sticky rice and chili paste. For dinner we ended up with an eggplant/pork dish, a pork/egg/chako (a vegetable) soupy thing and vermicelli noodles with pork. We could barely finish all our food. Stuffed to the brim, we chatted with our friends and all discovered none of us had visited the waterfalls yet, so we decided to share a tuk-tuk instead of taking a tour. Afterwards, we headed to a great little hang out place, right along one of the rivers to read for a bit, and then we went to see the movie 'splice' for free (it was horrible, in case you were wondering) and then headed to bed.

Nov 2: The Interview and the Waterfalls
We got up rather early because Phil had an interview over skype, and headed for an internet cafe. The interview went quite well, except the professor had given away the position the day before :-(. We had a skype session and then it was time for a quick lunch and to meet up with our friends to go visit the waterfalls. We bargained the price of the tuk-tuk down, and headed out on our adventure. The first waterfall was about 30 km away, and luckily we got there before all the tours did. At the entrance, we encountered a sanctuary for asian black bears and watched them for a bit. Then we headed up the trail to see the waterfalls. They weren't really waterfalls, they were more like many large pools that spilled over into one another. They were still gorgeous though, especially the color. We found the main pool (designated by a swinging rope and larger waterfall that you could jump off) and hung around there for a while, swinging and trying not to freeze (the water was quite cold). Afterwards, we headed up the trail a bit further to find the main waterfall, which was much larger (but also much less interesting because there was no rope). We then headed off to the next waterfall. We actually had to take a river boat taxi to reach this waterfall, and by the time we got there it was closing time (which was actually perfect, because we didn't have to pay an entrance fee and by this time we were done swimming anyway). We snapped a few pics and headed back to town. Once back in town, we realized we should grab some more night market bbq (even though this would be our 3rd time eating there) because it was so delicious and because it was our last night in LP. With plenty of fish and pork in our bellies, we went to pack our bags and prepare for the next day.