The former Lao capital of Luang Prabang is a city (more of a town really) of 50.000 people and over 60 temples. We didn’t visit all of them but the ones that we did see were quite impressive. We learned about the various Buddha poses, having come across a reclining “Tuesday” Buddha which we thought was rather funny until we realized that there’s actually a Buddha for each day of the week representing different events in his life. While quite a hike on a hot day, we also got a great view of the city, surrounding jungle and the Mekong river from the mountain-top temple in the center of town.
About 30 km outside of Luang Prabang lies the Kouangxi waterfall. Here we went for a swim and climbed to the top of the waterfall, a very steep climb that you would not want to take if it had recently rained. At the top, we found a secluded area with a bamboo raft and a sign that said “to source of waterfall”. After waiting for a little while, an older man came over and took us on a short boat ride where Alex got to hop out and swim at the spring’s source (our guide really encouraged this, seeming to imply there was something special about swimming here). He also explained that the bamboo raft could take a maximum of 5 people, not 6, or else it would sink. It sounded like he was speaking from actual experience, and as you can see from the picture of Alex’s feet, it wasn’t exactly water tight.
