Caribbean Adventures Aboard Kalalau: Luang Prabang, Laos

October 9 - 13

We arrived in Luang Prabang after 2 full days journey on the slow boat down the Mekong River. Although the boat ride was really pretty, we were really happy to be off the boat and in the beautiful city of Luang Prabang. We stayed at this luxurious boutique hotel 1/2 mile from the center of the city which really made our stay so enjoyable. The hotel had free bike rentals, so we rode bikes into town the first day and walked around the touristy streets admiring the beautiful art, silk, antiques, etc. Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel and relaxed under the palm trees on the river. The hotel is on the Nam Khan river which branches off from the Mekong River at the city of Luang Prabang.

Our welcome drink from Le Bel Air Boutique Hotel

This is the clothing boutique where some local Laos ladies are hand-weaving silk scarves and clothing.

The dining area on the river

Looking down the Nam Khan River from the old bridge which crosses to our hotel

That's our hotel across the river with all the palm trees and lounge chairs.

Monks taking an afternoon stroll in Luang Prabang

So much rice!

Statue of the Laos president

Some chilies drying out in the sun

We rented a motorbike on our second day and rode into the countryside (interior away from the river) to a beautiful waterfall, Kuangsi Waterfall.

We passed a bunch of these farms and villages on the way to the waterfall.

Part of the waterfall area is sectioned off for the bear conservation habitat where they keep rescued black bears. They look really different from the ones we have in Georgia.

Entrance to the Kungsi Waterfall area

BThe waterfall is very unique, different from any other waterfall we've seen. It's a multi-tiered waterfall, and the water is very clear and light greenish turquoise in color due to the minerals of the area. And the pools on each tier are very large and surrounded by bamboo, palms, and other large trees giving the area a lot of shade. We enjoyed swimming in all the different pools.

This is the top tier where the drop of the falls is the highest. There's a hiking trail to the right where we hiked up to the top of the falls and you can look over the edge where the water drops.

From the top of the falls

Here's Gene swimming on the bottom tier.

Another farm we passed on the way back to Luang Prabang

We stopped at this restaurant for a drink on the ride back. It's right on the Mekong River and we got to see some of the beautiful sunset.

On our third day, we rented mountain bikes and went for a ride through the villages located across the Mekong River (thanks to Rudy's suggestion - the manager of our favorite Laos restaurant, Tamarind). We had to take the bikes on the local ferry to cross the Mekong River.

This is one of the workers for the local ferry. It's basically a big barge with a ramp where cars, motorbikes, bicycles, etc can ride onto the barge to travel the short, 5 minute boat ride across the river.

This is the other ferry going the opposite direction, to Luang Prabang

Gene on the ferry with our mountain bikes

Here's an example of the villages we passed along the road (all dirt roads) on our bike ride.

We crossed several rivers. Some were actually pretty deep, so we ended up taking our shoes off and walking our bikes across. In this picture, you can see the trucks, cars, motorbikes, and people crossing the river.

Buffalo in the middle of the road

Rice paddy

Every village we rode through, we saw lots of children playing and they'd yell "Sa-bai-Dee" to us (means "hello" in Laos). We stopped in this one village for a bottle of water and met these three children, 2 brothers with their older sister. She carries the smallest child (on the right) on her back. They were really adorable!