This morning we awoke to yet another wonderful breakfast at our hotel and headed off for an amazing adventure of hiking and swimming. Yesterday, we made plans to meet some fellow slowboaters for a shared tuk-tuk ride to Kouang Si Waterfalls at 9am outside of a local café. As we walked down the main street in Luang Prabang (especially in the morning), every tuk-tuk driver in town is trying to get you for a ride to the falls. It’s one of the top things to do while here, but tourists can easily be duped into paying too much. The rule of thumb is to travel with at least four people and not pay more that 30,000 kip each (about $3.50 USD) for roundtrip travel (they’ll wait for you). We’ve heard of people paying 20,000 kip each with 6+ people, so the more the cheaper! We bargained with a few drivers (the best is when they start bargaining with each other) and left for the falls around 9:15am. We knew the one-hour ride would be a bit bumpy, as most of the roads are unfinished, so we strategically chose a more robust tuk-tuk.
Once we got to the falls, our driver only wanted to wait for two hours, but we quickly talked him into three. I think three hours is the minimum amount of time there, and four might be perfect. There is an entrance fee of 20,000 kip per person to enter into the falls, but just as you walk in there is a beautiful little sun bear and moon bear (Asiatic black bear) sanctuary. The sanctuary saves and houses these bears from a terrible trade that often leads to their death solely for their bile. Still to this day traditional medicine claims that sun and moon bear bile has healing properties, so theses animals are kept captive in awful living conditions, just to be killed for their gallbladders. We spent some time with the cute cubs and lazy adults on the way in AND on the way out…they’re just so adorable!
It was hard for us to continue on past these adorable black bears, and that’s hard for me to admit after my last run in…if you don’t recall, see our “Day 2” U.S. Roadtrip post. Once past the bear sanctuary, we were almost immediately at the falls! The cascading water is a beautiful turquoise blue from the limestone rocks and actually forms different tiered pools. When you first walk up to the falls (just beyond the bear sanctuary) you are at the lowest tier. It’s a beautiful site, but many tourists stop here for a dip, presumably unaware of the others or unwilling to continue the trek upwards. It is said that there are three main tiers, but we found other minor tiers that added up to a total of five! We push forward and found the second main tier with a beautiful wooden bridge that crossed over it to give a spectacular unobstructed view of the main falls!
This is where we were faced with an option…do we continue up or settle for this one?! We obviously continued up! We hiked up the right path to the upper falls, which is a bit more steep and slippery than the left, but it brings you through the lush green jungle of Laos. The path was doable, but at some points, it was a seriously steep dropoff. Once we arrived to the top, we were ready to dive right in! We walked over some planks of bamboo, took in the spectacular views, and dove into the uppermost-tiered turquoise pool!
After spending some time swimming in the frigid waters and playing on a makeshift swing, it was time to journey back down. This time we decided to hike back down the left path, which is a bit more carved out and actually gives you periodic views of some minor parallel falls. When we got to the base, we had to spend more time with the beautiful bears again! Exactly three hours had passed since we arrived, so we met our tuk-tuk driver in the parking lot right where he dropped us off. We rode back into the city with our friends and lovely conversations made the trip go by in no time.
As soon as we arrive back in the town of Luang Prabang, we decided to sign up for a course on local silk weaving and dying with our new friends through the Ock Pop Tok company, which we’ll be doing tomorrow morning! We were overdo for lunch, so we stopped in at nearby Café Toui, where Chef Toui prepares everything fresh with local ingredients, so be prepared to wait a bit (it even says this on the menu). The twenty or so minute wait was well worth it for the beautiful Mok Pa (fresh local Laotian fish with herbs and coconut milk custard wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed to perfection) along with a side of wild sticky rice.
After a perfect lunch, we went back to our hotel to recharge before heading out for the famous Luang Prabang night market. We were still feeling full from that amazing (but late) lunch, so we just planned on getting a banana and Oreo shake, until we saw these delicious little coconut pancakes in a cute banana leaf basket. How could we say no?!
Like we mentioned before, we’ll be taking a course on local silk weaving and dying with our new friends through the Ock Pop Tok company tomorrow…so stay posted!