Bird’s Nest Bevarage – 25% bird’s nest

Walking around Luang Prubang we came across a sign – 10 things to do in town.

High up the list was a visit to one of the three waterfall in the surrounding countryside. Originally we planned to combine elephant riding with a trip to see Kuang Si (the most spectacular of the falls) but that entailed a tour groups and timetables which i try and avoid as much as possible.

Instead we hired a tuk tuk. Ten dollars to rent the entire vehicle for the 32 km trip along a bumpy, dusty dirt track, across rickety bridges and through the rolling green scenery which is standard in Laos.

Kuang Si waterfall is the archetypal tropical waterfall. It was straight out of a Herbal Essences shampoo ad. Yelling out, “Yes, YES, OH YES” and mimicing an intense, organic experience took up most of my energy for the rest of the day.

Surrounded by lush verdant rainforest Kuang Si is a many-tiered, multi streamed waterfall cascading in large frothy volumes, across mossy rocks, through shrubs and trees, and down into clear turqoise pools.

We stood on the bridge linking the two banks of the main pool for ages admiring this cliched paradise. Ruth and I suddenly found ourselves repeating the same words. Our vocabulary had shrunk.

“Amazing”.

“Beautiful”.

“So amazing”.

“So beautiful”.

“Really amazing”…and so on.

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Wats are peppered liberally throughout Luang Prubang. Down every alley, side street, hidden behind small walls and gardens of frangipan and palm lie small, rustic temples. The wats house a large number of monks who are heavily present thoughout town – hence hence the ubiquitous flashes of orange robes as you walk the streets.

On our first day in town Ruth and I hired bikes to explore the town. Luang Prabang is small and pleasant enough to tackle on two wheels – we had to dodge only a few kamikaze taxis.

Wat Xieng Thang is the towns most magnificent, and the country’s most important, temple. Until 1975 and the (polite) communist revolution Wat Xieng Thong was a royal temple under royal patronage; an important site of political and religious ritual where the kings of Laos were crowned.

We arrived to find no crowds and little to distract our attention from the ambience and architecture. A few monks sat by the bank of the river uninterested in us – the only tourists present.
So we strolled aimlessly around the site, a cluster of small buildings set around a square of trees set at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers.

Wat Xieng Thong is the Alpha and Omega of Lao religious architecture. Despite this the temple is small and slightly worn, lacking the gawdy, glittering excesses of larger Thai Wats as would seem to be a feature of most Laos temples.

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