If I could choose a day to relive again, it might be today.
I enjoyed my breakfast and morning coffee along the Mekong River.
After breakfast, I headed into town to meet my kayaking group. I passed this cute bakery and coffee shop on my way.
I booked my kayaking tour through White Elephant. The manager is a Canadian who previously worked as a busy professional in Canada. He vacationed in Laos, fell in love, and eventually came back here to live. A small truck drove us out to Ban Aen, a small village on the bank of the Nam Khan River.
We took a long boat across the river.
There were 4 people in the group. Yang was our guide. His first wise piece of advice was "don't move on the long boats." We had to constantly bail water from the boat during the short river crossing.
Jonathan, who is popping his head out behind me, was also on the trip. He lives in Holland and is starting his master's degree in physics.
Matt, in the middle, is a Canadian living in Berlin. He has been doing musical theater for the past 10 years and just finished up a contract performing in the show Cats. We were all traveling solo. It was a great group.
From the river, we started our trek through the jungle.
Matt said it best when he mentioned that it felt like we were in the movie "Honey I Shrunk the Kids."
We stopped in a few small villages during our trek.
Every village has a long boat for racing.
The kids were playing soccer.
A typical Hmong kitchen.
Sleeping quarters for the parents.
Beds for the kids.
The kids were adorable.
Many of the women sew/weave goods and sell them at the night market.
She was roasting hot peppers to sell.
Most of the men were not in the village. They were harvesting rice in the fields. Despite the rustic look and feel, they had satellite television.
Laos exports a lot of hop. We walked by a few hop fields and sampled some. They taste a little like pine nuts.
Hop fields. They were also growing corn.
Rubber trees.
A crushed scorpion.
After trekking, we picked up our kayaks and headed to the Tad Sae waterfall. It is accessible only by boat.
Hello, Tad Sae. We decided this is what heaven must look like.
The pictures don't do it justice. It was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. These images capture only one small area of the falls.
We decided to do the zip line through the falls. There were about 20 different zip lines that covered about 2 km of the jungle.
We had a blast.
Up we went...
And then back down. They taught us how to zip line upside down. Our group was the only one using the zip lines and the only ones swimming in the falls. We couldn't understand why people would go all the way out there and not go in the water. We were living it up. The zip line took about 60-90 minutes and cost $30.
A waterfall is not complete without a rope swing.
There was an old water wheel that powered a rice masher.
We had some Lao food and fresh papaya for lunch, then headed off to kayak down the river. It was a 4 hour kayak through lush jungle and beautiful mountains. I couldn't take pictures because everything was wet, but it was so picturesque. My arms were jello by the end, but it didn't bother me one bit.
We got back to town around 6 p.m., showered, then met up again to have dinner at the night market. After, we went to a bar called Utopia, smoked some grape sheesha, had a few Lao beers, listened to live music, then headed off to bed. Good times.
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Location:Luang Prabang, Laos
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