I had my reservations about taking a minivan for the four hour journey north on hellish roads but there were few other options. Fortunately our driver was pretty good and took things at a safe pace which is extremely rare for an Asian minivan driver. The road snaked up into the mountains but the higher the elevation the thicker the haze appeared to be which was a shame as it obscured what would otherwise have been epic views. On arrival at Luang Prabang bus station we got stung for the first time on the trip and, as usual, it was a tuk tuk that overcharged us wanting 40k per person (almost 600 baht total) for the few kilometer hop to the hotel, naturally we told him where to go.
The first two things I noticed about Luang Prabang were the prices for pretty much everything were a fair bit higher here and most of the signage was in Chinese. In fact Chinese was spoken as much as Lao here which took away my linguistic advantage. It is the Phuket of Laos, consequently everyone is out for a buck and being a UNESCO World Heritage Centre it virtually gives anyone license to fleece the tourists. If Thailand is losing western tourists they’re all here, the place was packed though predominantly French. I first visited LP in the late ninety’s when it was a rustic little ex-colonial village with bicycles being the predominant method of transport. Today it is a sprawling town with a vibrant tourist center that still retains some of that old world charm.
We decided to rent some bikes to make getting around easier but even they were a sting, the highest price quoted was 140k LAK (550 baht) a day to rent an auto scooter. Added to that pain was the fact that most rental places were Chinese and they insisted on keeping your passport as a deposit citing the fact that motorbikes are so expensive in Laos. Managed to get a couple of underpowered Honda Waves for 80k (300 baht) per day and we’d use them to ride out to the waterfall the following day.
Kuang Si waterfall is about an hour’s ride west of Luang Prabang, the road is pretty good for most of the way. This is probably the area’s top attraction and as expected was very busy, mostly younger farangs though, many wearing virtually nothing irrespective of local cultural etiquette. Entrance was a mere 20k (70 baht) which is a fraction of what Thailand would charge to see something similar. The falls are spectacular to say the least, even in dry season, with several tiers dropping into turquoise limestone pools that were swimmable if you could brave the temperature. On the road back we stopped at a little riverside restaurant that we assumed was a local spot, it turned out to be on the tourist trail and was soon packed with farangs.
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More to follow ... 
