Laos 2017: Luang Prabang

#DidntGetLaost

Dates of Travel: 22 - 28 October 2017

I've always dreamt of visiting Laos after hearing lots of stories from backpackers and tourists whom I've met during my travels. Some claim it really was the most beautiful country in South East Asia. When I had a break and an overly enthusiastic colleague, turned friend, we decided to head there! We visited Luang Prabang (5 days) and Vientiane the capital (1 day).

Here are some of the things you can do in Luang Prabang!

There's a lot of tour operators who offer tours to Pak Ou Caves & Kuang Si Falls, the two most popular attraction in Luang Prabang. The entire package offered by tour operators to bring you to those two destinations ranges anywhere from 130,000 - 180,000 kip. Most places offer it at 150,000 kip which does not include lunch and entrance fees, so it's purely just transportation. We booked ours with Laos Discovery Tour who offered it to us at 130,000 kip per person (S$26).

Pak Ou Caves

We met with the tour operator at their office and someone actually walked us to the pier opposite Saffron Coffee & Bakery Cafe. If we were to go to the caves on our own, it will cost us about 65,000 kip (S$13) for the 2 hours boat ride to the caves, excluding entrance fees. 

2 hours boat ride to Pak Ou Caves

You ride on a skinny little boat with chairs fashioned out of old car seats or wooden chairs tied to the sides of the boat. The boat ride upstream was scenic and it gets more and more beautiful as you travel upstream.

bamboo raft

Once you get to the jetty of the caves, you disembark on this 'pontoon' of bamboo rafts tied together haphazardly and linked from one raft to another with just wooden planks. It was a test of my balancing skills man.

walking the plank to the caves

Entrance fees were 20,000 kip (S$4) per person and you cross another bunch of planks to get to the cave steps. Climb up steep steps and you will arrive at a cave which was much shallower than expected with thousands of Buddha statues. There's also a Buddha's shrine and a mat for devotees to pay their respects. 

I would like to add that I was extremely urgent and I had to pay 5,000 kip ($1) to use the washroom that looked constantly wet and dirty. It was the most expensive toilet I had paid to use in my life.

After 25 mins of wandering around, we headed back to the boat. If you're wondering if 25 mins is enough to explore? It was MORE than enough! Like I said, the cave wasn't too deep or too high of a climb up.

scenic view

On the way back, we stopped at a small little village selling whiskey with weird snakes and scorpions in it. I am not sure what health benefits you'd get from ingesting essences of scorpion, but it's not an uncommon sight in Asia.  Also, it was there that I  bought some scarves for my friends. They were selling it for 10,000 kip (S$2) or US$1. If you have USD with you, it is more value for money if you paid in USD for such an excellent exchange rate! Back in town, the exchange rate was US$ = 8,300 kip. 

Kuang Si Falls

After another 1.5 hours boat ride back to Luang Prabang, we quickly grabbed lunch before we were ushered into a minivan and headed towards Kuang Si Falls. The ride was about 30 - 45 mins worth of bumpy ride up the mountain. The entrance fees to Kuang Si Falls were included for us this time.

Kuang Si Falls

At the entrance, there's a Sun Bear Sanctuary where you get to watch cute, furry, lazy bears just lounging in the sun, or if you get lucky, you might get to see some play-fighting with each other.

Hike up the trail (you can do it easily in flip-flops) and you have reached the 1st waterfall. There's also a tree branch for you to climb up and sit on it for photo ops! There's a total of 3 pools at the waterfalls for you to swim and soak in. Personally, I feel that the first pool is the most accessible and beautiful one as compared to the other two. It is still a good hike up to see the halls nonetheless. The highest and grandest point of the waterfall is at the third pool.

1st Waterfall

3rd Waterfall

Hiking through the forest to the falls

There's small fishes in both the 1st and 2nd pools who will nibble on your feet's dead skin, very much like going for a Fish Spa. Now, I've never been to a fish spa, so I found it incredible ticklish. We swam both at the 1st and 2nd pools and you can get closer to the falls in the 1st pool though it was extremely cold and deep in the middle. I will advise only strong swimmers to attempt to swim up to the falls because the current can be quite strong pushing you away and it is very cold, almost got a cramp before I swam back.

Biking & Kayaking Tour

We were feeling adventurous while booking our tours and decided to book a one-day bicycle & kayaking tour. We paid a total of 350,000 kip (S$70) per person and booked with Jewel Tour Operator which includes an English speaking guide, bicycles, bottles of water, lunch, kayaks, and entrance fees. 

Cycling in the middle of no where

Photo op with our guide

We cycled a total of about 16km for 2-3 hours with some breaks in between. I would say you will need some form of mid level fitness. It would have been relatively easy for most people, but as you know, I'm quite unfit. When the tour operator lady sold us this tour, she mentioned that it was a gentle uphill in the beginning and the rest were either flat plains or downslope. 

Nonsense. 

It was a mixture of uphill and downhill on dusty roads. We rode through the town, through pineapple plantations, through what seemed like a jungle with a road cutting through it before reaching the pier to head towards Tad Sae Waterfall.

Pit stop!

our view from one of our pit stops

We rested for a bit before kayaking about 10 mins downstream to Tad Sae Waterfall for lunch and a splash in the turquoise cold waters.

our view at the end of the kayak

After a 2 hour break, we continued our kayak downstream for another 2 hours on the Mekong River through quaint fishing villages and mountains looming in the distance. It was relatively easy to kayak as we were essentially kayaking downstream and the river is relatively calm except for several areas where there's a land mass in the middle of the river or rocks in the waters and it will start to get choppy. Otherwise, it is something even beginners are able to handle. 

At the end of the kayak, there was a Tuk Tuk waiting for us to ferry us and the kayaks back into town.

Tad Sae Waterfall

Tad Sae Waterfall

Because we loved Tad Sae Waterfall so much, we decided to go back there on our last day before we took the sleeper bus into Vientiane. I feel that despite it being harder to get to (tuk tuk then boat), they had built nice steps in the 1st pool and it was so much shallower as compared to Kuang Si Falls. There was also lesser people and there's even a nice little coffee shop built over the falls for you to have a nice hot cup of Lao Coffee.

Tad Sae's 3 waterfalls

Quaint little café over the falls

Tad Sae also had 3 waterfall points/pools but they are much less accessible. We had to hike for about 15-20 mins to get to the 2nd waterfall and we never made it to the 3rd. Just a word of caution, if you have the opportunity to go, I'd advice wearing proper hiking shoes to get to the 2nd fall because after the 1st fall, it's all dirt trails which would have been easy to anyone wearing shoes. We were wearing flip flops and mine gets super slippery when wet, thus I had an OK time getting to the 2nd fall, but not so great time coming back cos I was slipping half the time. 

café has a tree top platform

overlooking the falls

We didn't see any trail leading to the 3rd fall which I presume you had to hike up and through the jungle with no proper path. The 2nd fall was BEAUTIFUL and there were many basins you can swim and soak in. But because there were no amenities like wooden steps or benches at the 2nd fall, we had to leave our dry bags on the river banks with a watchful eye and pray no one else will come and steal them or that they would have floated away.

our table right over the falls

After soaking up the sun and the cold waters for about 45 mins, we headed back to the 1st fall where I felt more at ease with more tourists around should I get a cramp while swimming, someone will come and save me. The 1st pool is also very shallow at one point, so you can just waddle up to the falls for photo taking. There's also a nice platform with benches and chairs to leave your belongings and stand on to take photos. 

Beautiful Tad Sae Waterfalls

waddle right up to the falls

To get to Tad Sae Waterfall, find a Tuk Tuk to bring you to the pier. We found one where we paid 150,000 kip for the entire Tuk Tuk which includes a round trip transfer and waiting for us for 3 hours. If you manage to make friends, get more people to share the ride! Once at the pier, you pay 10,000 kip per person for the 10 min boat ride across the river. Entrance to the waterfall is 15,000 kip each.

Mount Phousi

We had a bit of time on our 4th day after zip-lining and decided to head up to Mt. Phousi to watch the sunset! Little bit of advice would be to head up EARLY to get a good spot and snap pictures of the beautiful town below before the sunset! We started at around 4pm and climbed up 300 odd steps before reaching the summit. It was a relatively easy climb with just a short break in between for me. Entrance fee was 20,000 kip to visit the temple and summit.

Sunset was at 5.25 pm and the epicness of a sunset started at around 5pm. Thus, if you started early, you would have had enough time to climb up, snap pictures and settle in for the beautiful sunset with a good view.

Zip Line

Zip lining!

 We booked with Jewel Tour Operator for this Zipline Adventure for US$30/ 249,000 kip per person. My initial impression was that it was very expensive for just a zip line, but it was a series of 8-10 zip lines and the whole course takes 1 hour to complete! I felt it was rather worth it. There was pick up service at our hotel to the pier of Nam Khan River which was just behind our hotel. A 30 min boat ride to their site and a short but extremely bumpy ride via Tuk Tuk or in our case, was a jeep, to the camp site. 

You zip line over the jungle canopy and rivers and end up at their flower garden. After the course, you walk back through the flower garden & green canopy walk through the jungle before arriving back at their starting point where you ca enjoy a cup of coffee or even lunch. 

We initially wanted to swim at the waterfall, but the waters were brown and muddy and didn't look anything like Kuang Si Falls or Tad Sae Falls with the beautiful turquoise colour so we decided to just chill at their café instead. 

Luang Prabang Night Market

We visited the night market every night as there's a row of food stalls at the back selling all sorts of Lao food and fruit shake. A plate of fried rice or a bowl of noodles typically costs about 15,000 -20,000 kip (S43-4) per dish and a fruit shake is about 10,000 - 15,000 kip (S$2-3). This is obviously a much cheaper option compared to hipster cafes selling the same types of French baguette sandwiches at 60,000 kip (S$12) compared to the night market of 20,000 kip (S$4). Lao Coffee is also extremely good and I had to have a cup every morning. 

Food stalls at the night market

My favourite dish will have to be their Pork Fried Rice. As there were many stalls at the back of the night market, each night we just walk up to the stalls and choose which stall is empty and which Auntie we liked for that night. Each stall we tried were SOOO YUMMY!

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Let me know what you thought about Laos/Luang Prabang if you've visited before! I personally liked it a lot and I see myself coming back for more!