28th December – Luang Prabang

The past few days have been very calm and peaceful and a nice change from all the travelling.  Christmas Day was sunny but very cold all morning, warming up by noon.  I explored town and crossed a bamboo bridge that spans the river Nam Khan, one of the many tributaries of the Mekong.   It is this river that creates the peninsular on which the old part of Luang Prabang is built.  The bamboo bridge cost 5,000kip because it was privately made by an enterprising family who must be doing quite well as a result of their investment of time. 

Back in town I bought a map and took a tuk-tuk to Phosy (pronounced pussy) market in search of the foam inner tube filler that my friend Trevor Parsons has suggested in response to all the flats I’ve been having.   Doing my best to mime what I was looking for reminded me that this would make a good topic for the Christmas charades that I am missing back home.  No foam to be found however; a bit too cutting-edge for this place.  I guess it would put an awful lot of people out of business here.  But I did find a jacket to replace the one I lost.  Not quite as warm as my old one but leatherette and looks quite cool on a motorbike.  The focus of my day was lunch at the Apsara Hotel’s restaurant where I had an amazing French-inspired Christmas lunch for 25,000kip (about £20).  Very extravagant of me but it was all presented and served so beautifully and turned out to be one of the most delicious meals I can remember eating.  Several successful Skype calls in the evening, including one to my dear friend Dingle in Jamaica, made it a lovely day.

Merry Christmas (note the hammer and sickle)

On Boxing Day I took the bike out to see the Kuang Si waterfalls, about 30k west of LP.  It was a pleasant ride in sunshine and I was in no hurry.  Lots of little stalls outside the main entrance so I bought some rice cakes, three banana fritters and a plastic cup full of fresh papaya, mango and banana.  This was lunch.  The waterfalls are extraordinarily beautiful: tiers of aquamarine pools with occasional wide but short limestone drops into the next pool.  Really quite out of this world and unlike anything I have ever seen before. 

There were relatively few tourists and none were swimming.  The water was pretty cold so I decided not to be the centre of attention and go in, but I know that if Harriet had been here she would certainly have gone in (she’s so much hardier than me).  The falls are set within a tropical rain forest park so I took a trail up through some dense jungle and then returned to sit by one of the pools, read my book and nibble at my lunch.  In the evening had a very pleasant meal and conversation with a retired American teacher, Joel, with whom we talked largely about American politics.

Yesterday I moved hotels to a rather more upmarket one on the other side of the Nam Khan river.  Beautiful new place owned by a Lao chap committed to using only Lao products.  2% of the revenues go towards supporting rural schools.  Unfortunately, due to New Year, they are fully booked up after my two days here but it would have been an ideal place to stop a while longer and actually get down to some writing.   Supper in the nice open air restaurant next door to my hotel which overlooks the river.  Each of the young staff came up to me in turn to practise their English.  Today I walked back into town, over the bamboo bridge, to withdraw some more money before my trip into the more remote north tomorrow.  When I got back I took the bike to a local mechanic to have an oil change.  He was Vietnamese and most interested in where I had been.  While waiting I bought a few things for lunch from one of the stalls, including some pork scratchings, as good as any you’d get in an English pub. 

Tomorrow I’ll set off early.  I’m just hoping I’ll find somewhere to stay in mountains.