Luang Prabang, Laos

We got to Luang Prabang safe and sound. It is a World Heritage Listed site and is full of wats. We visited the Royal Palace Museum and some of the oldest wats (Wat Visoun and Wat Xieng Thong) in Laos. Wat Visoun was built in 1516 and Wat Xieng Thong was built in 1560. Wat Xieng Thong is still in good condition as it was regularly used by the royal family until the last century, whereas the original Wat Visoun was burnt down a few times in the course of history.

The temples themselves were pretty amazing with all the delicate wooden carvings and murals on the walls. Together with the sight of devout saffron clad monks walking around in the complex, the experience for me was just surreal.

The town centre itself is full of colonial French style buildings which are now converted to shops. The main road was surprisingly quiet in the day, but then it transformed into a busy night market from around 7pm which had stalls of handicrafts, tribal weavings, and thousands of souveniors for tourists. You could also eat at the night market. A couple of nights during our stay, we had vegetarian buffet for 5,000 Kip (A$1) then bought take-away barbequed pork ribs, chicken fillets, fruit shakes and fruits etc. It was so cheap. The whole dinner only cost us like A$3.50.

We bumped into the Austrian girls that we met in Vang Vieng about half a dozen times while we were in town. I will not be surprised if I see them in Luang Nam Tha as well (next stop). It is a small world here. As we are on the main backpackers' route, we will probably see a lot of familiar faces all the way to Thailand.

I also spent a day doing elephant riding, washing and training in one of the elephant sanctuaries. Although it was a bit steep in price (US$50), it was the best day ever. These animals are the gentlest things. Each weighed probably around a tonne or more, but you could not hear them walking. I was really scared of them when I was riding them. I didn't really want to direct them just in case they got angry and tossed me off their head.

It was also very scary riding them to the river to wash them. My elephant wanted to enjoy a swim of her own and totally ignored me when I was trying to brush her. Frankly I don't think the brush I was given had any real effect on her. Her skin was really thick and her hair was probably stronger than the brush hair. The elephant went away from the herd and was deep in the water. Both myself and the mahout were getting bit worried as her whole head was submerged in water and only her trunk was above the water. The mahout who was sitting at the back changed with me and was directing the elephant from the head to bring all of us to safety. When he was in charge of the elephant, the elephant got back to the rest of the group in less than 10 seconds. It felt like a tank moving when she swam back to the herd.

I also did a half day to Kuang Si Waterfall. It was a cascading waterfall in the rainforest. It was quite famous for its blue colour water. The trekking would have been nice in the forest if it wasn't full of leeches. A couple of people in the group had leech attacks and one lady apparently didn't find out that she was bitten until she had shower that night. I think it put her off trekking for the rest of her trip. Naomi couldn't come to either the waterfall or the elephant park as she as too poor after buying too much weaving.

Oh, it is such a pity that the town did not have a sports bar. As State of Origin was on while we were in Luang Prabang, it took me pretty much the whole day to find a bar that showed the game. I am really glad that I watched it though. What an awesome game with a great result for Queensland. I even taught a few locals how to boo the Blues and told them that they had lost 3 years in a row as they can't play football.

I am surprised that there weren't many bars at all in such a touristy place. In Vang Vieng, the whole town was littered with bars and pubs. If only they had a quarter of the bars..... Angus, you don't need to come to this town mate.

Oh, I spent a few hours one afternoon volunteering in the 'My Library' project. It is part of the Stay Another Day campaign which is a non-profit campaign aimed at getting travellers to help out on various projects in Laos and also to promote the Lao culture to the world. 'My Library' is pretty much a library for Laos students (from primary school to college) to come and hang out and read books. They also have free computers for students to learn and play on.

I initially was instructed to help some students out with Microsoft Excel. It was super embarrassing when I couldn't answer the first question they asked me which was how to type in Laos language in Excel. Other questions I managed to answer ok with the assistance of the Help function. I then spent the next hour doing something that I am pretty good at – talking!