Today was our first full day in Luang Prabang in the north of Laos.

Kristina decided she was in dire need of a pedicure hehe, so I left her to that and went wandering for an hour. Luang Prabang is a small town of around 50,000 and sits on a UNESCO-protected peninsula formed by the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. And it's pretty bloody nice, as is all of what little we've seen of Laos so far.

I wandered along the Mekong side of town, with no shortage of restaurants and fruit stands along the way (some smelling good, some smelling like arse).

I also saw several of these either built or being built. October marks the end of the wet season, and a festival is held some time around the middle of the month in various parts of the country to celebrate, and includes boat racing on the Mekong.

The main wat (Buddhist temple) to see in town is this one - Wat Xieng Thong. This was built back in 1560 and is quite impressive inside according to Lonely Planet. However, I wasn't willing to pay the admission fee to go in (all $2.50 of it) - I've seen inside several already (usually a bloody big gold Buddha with some dude praying to it) and we'll no doubt see several more over the coming weeks.

And with that I reached the end of the peninsula where the Nam Khan meets the Mekong, and wandered back to meet Kristina with her now less offensive feet.

I've been managing to keep up with the Rugby World Cup while tripping about, and today was the quarter final between the All Blacks and Argentina. When we got off the boat yesterday, we were given a piece of paper advertising a local bar that was playing the game, and this was it hahaha! Still, better than nothing. Argentina put up a good fight but in the end it was 33-10 to the AB's which has us playing Australia in the semi-finals next Sunday.

From there we headed back into town just as the night market was setting up. Here we have yet another wat - Mai Suwannaphumaham (pronounce that how you will). It is the largest and (according to Wikipedia) the most richly decorated of the temples in Luang Prabang.

Then it was a couple hundred steps up the side of Phu Si - a 100m-high hill plonked in the centre of town. There are a couple more wats up here but they're not the main reason for the tourists to work up such a sweat.

It's for the awesome views from the top. Full-size version of the shot on the left here.

Panorama looking east to south over the Nam Khan River on the left.

This is also a favourite haunt for sunset junkies, and to get a nice cheesey shot with the missus :)

Dinner along the Mekong and that was that for the day. We were going to spend our next two days here checking out some famous caves and waterfalls in the area, but we discovered today that it's possible (and in our case better) to knob two birds with one johnny and do both in one day. With that being the case we're going to cut our stay in Luang Prabang short by a day, and spend that spare day in Laos' capital later in the week.

We started out today getting back on a boat and heading back up the Mekong River for an hour, back in the direction we'd just come from a couple days ago.

And this is where we got off - the Pak Ou caves. The upper cave here contains this shrine...

...lined with several gold Buddha.

The lower cave here has yet another shrine, and hundreds of miniature Buddha sculptures! Unless you really love Buddha, I'd say you can give these caves a miss - it's a bit of a tourist trap.

After lunch we jumped into a minivan for an hour's drive into the hills, ending up here in the gorgeous little village of Kuang Si with its stunning forest.

The forest is home to a shelter for sun bears rescued from poachers.

They weren't really playing ball for the camera though. This one was hiding out in a pipe...

...and the guy on the left looks dead while his mate there was really fascinated by its own toes.

The forest is also home to these beauties - the Kuang Si Falls, a series of waterfalls cascading over limestone formations.

The water collects in numerous pools as it flows downstream, most of which you can swim in.

While the caves were a bit of a waste of time, this place was absolutely awesome! We only had a couple hours to spend here before having to head back into town, which kind of sucks as we could've easily stayed for the best part of a day.

This is our driver's daughter, holding the beer can her father had just finished off while driving hahaha - different part of the world over here. It seems that while we were all checking out the falls, he and his family used the time to go do the grocery shopping, which he then dropped off at his house while we waited hehe.

After all that excitement, Kristina made a friend over dinner...

...and we treated ourselves to an hour-long traditional Lao massage. One of those ones where they climb all over you and twist you in ways you didn't think possible hehe. I say "treated", but it cost all of $5. Yup, $5, for a one-hour massage. And that's for it us in Luang Prabang - brilliant spot!

This morning we jumped in another minivan with more random bullshit all over the dash and hanging from the rear-view mirror for the six-hour mission from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng.

We made several drink stops in random towns and villages along the way, and at one stage an American chick (not Kristina) requested an impromptu bathroom break to which the driver stopped on the roadside and pointed her towards the bushes hahaha! She said she'd just hold it.

Look, a bug.

For a six-hour drive you might think we had some 400km to cover, but no - it was only 135km, but we had to do the whole lot through the mountains. And what a stunning group mountains they are - this country is proving be one of the most naturally beautiful I've visited, and one of the poorest at the same time.

The mountains weren't the only thing to slow us down though. The roads for the most part are in pretty good shape, but in parts there are whole sections that are completely missing, and others with potholes large enough to land a plane in that really threw us around and put the suspension though its paces. Add to that a constant array of obstacles all over the road - cyclists (love the umbrellas), scooters, tractors, naked children, cows and buffalo (we nearly took out about six of them in total), chickens, old ladies (nearly took out a few of them too) and it makes for a long but bloody entertaining rollercoaster of a trip.

We eventually made it to Vang Vieng before the suspension gave up completely, and without anyone throwing up (or that American chick getting caught short). Anyway, we're here for the next couple days. In other news, the flooding down south is still causing widespread chaos and deaths, though where we are up in the north is right as rain (pun fully intended). Having said that, the floods have already impacted our plans once, and if the situation hasn't improved by next month then things could get interesting.

Vang Vieng is a small town of just 25,000 but is firmly on the tourist trail thanks mostly to this - tubing on the Nam Song River. Other major attractions include caving, kayaking, rock-climbing, and making a drunken arse of yourself. Suffice it to say that the town is absolutely chock full of tourists, and is nowadays very tourist-oriented. While it brings a lot of money into the town, locals have said that tubing and tourism are destroying the town's culture, and I would have to agree with that. Local grievances include pollution, inappropriate behaviour of tourists, and environmental damage. Be that as it may, we took to the river today surrounded by the amazing karst hill landscape that surrounds the town. The deal with the tubing is you get dropped about 3km north of town and float your way back, stopping at many of the several bars that are set up on the river along the way, all of them blasting out the finest of today's cheesy pop music (no wonder the locals are horrified). The end result is much drunkenness, and the occasional drowning.

Remember the snake whiskey in Luang Prabang? Well here we have wasp whiskey hehe. Down the hatch!

This was our second bar after starting at the bar across the river there. Some of them had rope swings, some of them had slides, this one had a freakin' high diving board! I threw myself from it first, and after much hesitation Kristina followed suit (while keeping hold of her bikini top hehe).

Panorama from the second bar. We entered the river on the far right, and after several wasp whiskeys continued floating/flailing towards the left.

This was our third (and longest) stop.

This bar was notable for two things: spray paint...

...and this awesome swing over the river!

I did Tarzan proud.

Kristina did not, and couldn't seem to hold on hahaha!

After a while the spray painting got a bit out of hand.

After a couple hours we finally left that bar, more drunk and more colourful for the experience.

Our final stop as the sun was going down had a few slingshots for target practise, and I discovered I'm a 29-year-old version of Bart Simpson.

This guy meanwhile tried to ride that cow.

We were supposed to have the tubes back by 6pm, but it was more like 6:30 by the time we eventually staggered back into town. Oh well.

After we hired that scooter in Chiang Mai and had a blast on it, we've been looking for an excuse to hire another one. The stunning limestone karsts surrounding Vang Vieng are honeycombed with tunnels and caverns, and after drunken tubing, caving is the town's main draw. One of more popular caves is 7km outside of town along a "scenic unsealed road" and apparently worth the visit. Perfect!

And here's that scenic unsealed road hehe, full of bicycles and scooters weaving in all directions to avoid the mud. We were woken at about 5am this morning by a huge rain storm, which I assume was the cause of all this. Regardless, we screamed through it all on the scooter, slipped and slid all over the place, got covered in shit, fell off once, Kristina got stuck in the mud, and the motor sucked in a bit of water and stalled (though I managed to get it cranking again). Spectacular stuff ;)

After we'd made it through that, we certainly got the scenery we were promised.

This is Tham Phu Kham cave with its reclining Buddha, and is considered sacred by the Lao people. This is in the main chamber of the cave near the entrance, and from here deeper galleries branch off into the mountain with absolutely no lighting (except for the natural light from outside) and no steps or walkways, so the cave is basically still in its natural state.

A guide is recommended to take you further into the cave, but bugger that - I'm going exploring!

We followed the main gallery further into the cave. It is absolutely pitch black in here and extremely vast with very high ceilings - it's a mammoth space! From this point we seemed to be the only ones here - everyone else only went as far as the Buddha.

Kristina was happy to stay put while I ventured off on my own, and tried not to get lost. I was clambering around for close to an hour (it really is massive in here) and eventually found an impressive collection of stalactites and stalagmites deep in the cave.

The rock in this part of the cave sparkled in our headlamps, and the whole cavern was quite an amazing sight! At this point it was 4:30pm, and it's dark by about 6pm here. We were really deep in the cave here - I don't think you can really go much further actually, and the terrain was extremely difficult (wet and slippery with steep jagged rock everywhere) so we couldn't hang around any longer and started heading back. I'm pretty good with direction but in a huge pitch-black cave it can be a different story, and on our way back out of here I actually hit a dead-end that I did not expect hehe. Picture this: you're in a massive cave, pitch-black, it's just you and the girlfriend with your little headlamps, and while looking for the cave entrance you hit a dead-end - what would you do? ;) Well first and foremost, probably don't tell the girlfriend right away if she's likely to freak out hehe. Deep though we were, I was careful to ensure we didn't venture too far beyond sight of the natural light coming in from the outside. So we turned our headlamps off, and way off in the distance I could just vaguely make out a faint slither of light to steer us in the right direction. Once we had that, it was just a case of getting there. Kristina's flip-flops had both busted so I gave her mine to use while I went barefoot - just to add to the fun :)

About 30 minutes later we emerged, covered in mud. There was never a moment of panic, but I was relieved to get out of there.

Beneath the entrance of the cave is this wee stream where we cooled off and washed off before hooning back down that unsealed road and getting covered in mud again.

Today is our last in Vang Vieng (in theory, more on that in a bit), and we hired another scooter to visit some more caves in the area.

I mentioned the massive potholes all over the road a few days ago. Going over them in a minivan is one thing, going over them on a scooter is another hehe. BANG BANG!

Add to that the unpredictable wildlife roaming all over the road and it's a far cry to cycling in London.

More of the incredible Laos scenery we've come to expect.

Anyway, we rocked up to an area with four caves in close proximity to each other known as the Tham Sang Triangle, only two of which we were interested in seeing. We picked up a guide (or rather he started tagging along) as recommended by several folk and I could later see why.

First up, Tham Loup - slippery and muddy as hell.

This cave is popular for its awesome stalactites, some of which are hollow and make a cool noise that echoes throughout the cavern when you smack 'em.

As always, there's a Buddha near the front door.

Tham Loup is a loop of about 500 metres, and I wouldn't recommend it for fatties - even I struggled to squeeze my tight ass through this gap (of which there are several).

Back into daylight, and back into another cave though with a slight difference - this one is full of water. This is Tham Nam and in the wet season the only way through is on a tube, and there are ropes to pull yourself along and lead you through (although in our case the guide did the leading). In the dry season, the water level is low enough to wade through.

Looks like a sewer (except for the dripping stalactites). These caverns go on for quite a way, and there's no real current to push you along (hence the ropes so you can pull yourself along instead). The sound of dripping water is all around, and a good scream in here echoes for ages!

After about 20 minutes you arrive at a dead-end, get a few photos with your waterproof camera, and head back out again. After the slippery, muddy, and rugged caves of yesterday and today, Tham Nam made for a nice refreshing change.

Back on dry land and in daylight, we headed back through the traditional little village where we parked the scooter. At this point we parted company with our guide, who then asked 100,000 Kip for his services (about $13). This, by Lao standards, is a lot of money and by no means a reasonable amount to pay the guide. But, as is always the case, it's all about the art of the haggle. I'd done my research on this area beforehand and 10-20,000 Kip seemed to be an acceptable and reasonable payment. But of course when I handed over 20 he then said he wanted 20 from each of us hehe (another common tactic) - he didn't get it.

We had to park the scooter across this river from the caves due to the only bridge being washed away some time ago. The only way across the river (which is about 15 metres in width) was this dude with his boat. When we arrived and he first took us across, he demanded 20,000 Kip ($2.50) - again a very unreasonable amount. I gave him 10, he then wanted 10 from each of us, and he didn't get it. On the way back, he this time asked for 10 hehe, but I refused to give him anything which really fucked him off. To put this into perspective, our guide gave us a couple hours of his time, took us through the caves, pointed out bits and pieces, took photos of us etc., and 20,000 Kip is considered a reasonable payment in return for that. This prick however gave us two minutes of his time, and twice took us all of 15 metres across a river that we could've just swam across if we felt so inclined - 20,000 Kip (10 before and 10 now) is definitely an unreasonable ask for that. As we walked away he followed closely, yelling at us in Lao hehe. I stopped, turned and reiterated that we had made sufficient payment already, and so he threw his fists up and just stood there as if challenging me to a fight over it hahaha! So there we were, standing beside a river in middle-of-nowhere Laos, and this little Lao man of maybe 160cm in height (a little over 5ft) was wanting to throw down with me! I gotta tell ya, I love my life ;) Anyway, as he stood there, I just smiled, turned and continued walking towards our scooter. He got in front, grabbed our helmets off our scooter, and starting walking back to the river with them hehe. Losing those helmets would cost us quite a bit so at this point I decided it wasn't worth it. I coerced the helmets back from him in exchange for a 5,000 Kip note, which he took, ripped into pieces, and threw on the ground before storming off hahaha, dear me. And with that, we carried on and enjoyed more of that scenery.

Now to you and me, $2.50 for example is pittance, but the equivalent of 20,000 Kip is worth considerably more to these people in what is one of the poorest countries in the world. But just because we are "rich westerners" here doesn't mean we deserve to be exploited, which is all this was. Kristina and I have a very tight budget for this trip given we're funding ourselves for seven months through our savings alone, and in order to meet that budget we can't just pander to every unreasonable demand for cash, albeit such small amounts by our standards. Furthermore, the fact this dude tore up my money rather than take it says he doesn't need it - he must make a lot of money out of the unprepared tourists who hand over whatever he demands. The rule of thumb is that if a price is clearly displayed or printed (e.g. bus tickets, restaurant menus, etc) then it is non-negotiable, whereas if no price is displayed (e.g. market stalls, this guy's boat, etc) then it is up for haggling and haggle you definitely should as the price you'll be quoted will always be unreasonable. Fair is fair at the end of day.

After all that fun we actually went back to the river for dinner, though much further downstream from Mr Fisticuffs. Something we've seen a lot so far on this trip is kids playing in large groups either on the street or on the river. Kristina found that somewhat surprising, until I pointed out that they've probably never even heard of Playstation or X-Box, and TV here from what we've seen is terribly boring, so the kids actually go outside rather than spend their childhood indoors like in many in the west.

And then we had our first major injury of the trip. While dismounting the scooter, Kristina accidentally touched the exhaust pipe with the back of her leg, resulting in this beauty of a burn - ouch! After a lot of icing and cold water, Dr Aaron smothered it with antiseptic cream and gauzed it up. A bit of ibuprofen for the pain and she's sleeping like a baby as I write this. We'll keep lathering the antiseptic on it and changing the bandage, and we've got no more caving or the like planned for the foreseeable future so this should hopefully sort itself out over the next couple weeks and heal up ok.

Meanwhile, I know I keep banging on about the floods down south, but the latest news is that even Bangkok is soon to be inundated by the wet stuff within the next 72 hours and parts of Vietnam aren't doing much better. It's expected to take weeks to clear which makes the possibility of the Malaysian alternative to our plans that I mentioned yesterday all the more likely. As I write this, it's absolutely pissing it down outside, the likes of which I've only ever seen a few times before - our street has turned into a river! Laos just had their annual celebration of the end of the wet season these last few days - might've been a bit premature this year.

Anyway, that should be it for our time in Vang Vieng, and in fact in Laos. The original plan was to head down to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and from there head to Hanoi in Vietnam. However, people we've spoken to generally haven't liked Vientiane all that much, and there is a direct bus to Hanoi we can catch from here anyway, so that's what we're going to do. However, we're still waiting for our passports to come back from the travel agent after we sent them off to get entry visas into Vietnam; they should in theory be ready now but I'm not going out in that rain to check hehe so it can wait until morning since the bus to Hanoi doesn't leave until the afternoon. As for that bus, it's about a 24-hour journey on a sleeper bus. As daunting as that may sound, reviews about it are generally positive. Flying from Vientiane is an option, but at over $200 for the plane compared to around $40 for the bus, we're opting for the cheaper and more adventurous option (as per usual). So, assuming our visas have arrived and everything goes to plan, the next update will be from Vietnam!