Wednesday was a big day. We’d booked a driver for a day through the hotel to take us to Kuang Si Falls and various other places on the way back. We paid probably more than market rate, but it was worth the convenience. The alternative would have been to go into the city and find a driver somewhere, wasting time haggling when we could be exploring.

Kuang Si Falls was about an hour away from our hotel and we drove in air conditioned comfort to arrive around 9:30am, well before the bus loads of tourists arrived in the afternoon. We got dropped off at the collection point then jumped into an electric buggy that took us up the hill.

Kuang Si Falls has three main swimming areas that we walked along side to take our photos, before stopping at the top pool for a dip. The water was cool and should have been a welcome reprieve from the humidity but still, cold water is cold water and it took a shamefully long time for us to get in. We also spent a good amount of time standing knee deep while the many, many fish nibbled at the skin on our feet. I was swarmed and clearly need to get regular pedicures.

The water was otherwise clear and cool and refreshing. We swam out to the small falls that cascade down then I got out, with Shawn taking advantage of me heading back to request some photos be taken. Kids today…

After we dried, we walked up to the bigger falls, took our photos then took the 542 stairs to the top. There are signs at the bottom for “The View”, which includes a series of tree houses and viewing platforms for you to get a look out across the hills and valleys as well as the falls. It’s also got a zipline that’s been recently installed. The photos give you the impression you’ll see the falls from the top of the stairs, but not so. Plenty of people were coming down the stairs as we were coming up, thwarted from getting a good view and not willing to pay the price. We opted for the zipline down at USD25 per head.

The experience includes five ziplines and two abseils. I’ve been ziplining in Canada and New Zealand and both places have you go through about 30 minutes of safety briefings before you’re allowed on. Here, we were strapped into our harnesses in less than a minute then walked across swinging rope walkways to meet the three other guys on our group. Our instructions were simple and fast and before you knew it we were hurtling from one side of the hill to the other. 

Stepping off the platforms and doing the abseiling were probably the hardest parts but overall it was a fun way to get down to the bottom pool. The guide at the back was a master with the phones – though I watched him probably a little too closely while he was holding a phone with one hand and strapping me onto the line with the other. It also felt like our phones were held hostage unless we promised to give him a tip at the end.

Safely down, we went for another swim. The place had gotten busier by then and we had to share the pool with others this time, including screaming teenage girls. Having cooled down again, we changed and stopped in at the Free the Bears sanctuary and met Tyler to talk about the bears and interpretation. 

There are 19 moon and sun bears at this sanctuary, which is along the path as people go from the entrance up to the waterfalls. The bears were really visible and provide a value-add for everyone, though it’s hard to convey to disparate groups in varying sizes how the bears got their and the terrible conditions they were in beforehand. Bear bile farming, pet trade and restaurant trade sound bad to one audience but are acceptable to another. Working to change that is difficult, especially for a transient audience who aren’t necessarily looking for a wildlife experience.

After Kuang Si Falls, we went to the Laos Buffalo Dairy where an American and an Australian woman have set up a social enterprise farm. They rent water buffalo from local farmers and vaccinate them. They also milk them to make a range of buffalo milk products before returning them to the farmers. They also have pigs, goats and rabbits, which they use in education. It’s a whole setup, does a lot of good, and offers great products too.

We went on the tour with our young guide being family – he called the water buffalo “unicorns” – and started with some pigs, before going in to meet the rabbits. We almost stepped on a bunch of kits that seemed to have been born only a moment before us getting in the pen. Six all together with everyone watching very carefully to make sure they weren’t going to step on any that had been missed. 

From the rabbits to piglets and adolescent pigs then milking a water buffalo. I was the only one out of four who wasn’t successful, more worried that I was going to hurt Lola the buffalo than anything. After that, we brushed and watered some other water buffalo before going to bottle feed some younger buffalo in another pen. We were then treated to buffalo ice cream and fried buffalo mozzarella and cake. Great experience.

After that, we went back to town and stopped at the Living Lands Ock Pot centre, another social enterprise that gives women weavers a place to carry out their craft and sell their goods. There’s a display of the different types of material used – silk, hemp, cotton, etc – and where the dyes come from, and we watched the women weaving for a while too. The place is set alongside the river with a hotel and a restaurant and would have been a beautiful place to sit and watch the sunset if we’d had the time.

That was about all we could fit in so the driver took us back to the hotel where we showered and caught the 5:30 shuttle back into the city. It was time to climb Mount Phousi! We climbed up one side of the mountain to the temple on the top where a small crowd was gathered to watch the sunset. It was busy, but I can imagine it would be HEAVING at other times and almost unpleasant.

We stayed and watched the sun descend, red and angry, but the haze was bad and the clouds had rolled in so we watched it disappear behind clouds just before it could sink behind the mountain. We walked down the other side of the hill, bumped into the people we’d met at the dairy (also Australian), then continued to Lost in Baan for dinner.

Another recommendation, a fancy place set up by a French couple. We had some drinks and ordered some food, all of it delicious. Shawn had pork belly (it was massive), while I had perfectly cooked fish and we shared a mango salad. We had the place to ourselves, which was a little quiet but meant we didn’t have to shout to be heard. Apparently it gets very busy.

With time to spare, we went to Little Lao Cafe, which has a restaurant at the bottom and a bar at the top. Lushly decked out, it would no doubt be an incredibly popular place during peak season but we had the whole cocktail bar upstairs to ourselves for about an hour and a half. We had interesting cocktail combinations: I had a gin-and-tamarind cocktail, while Shawn had a rum and something and a gin and something. They had local flavours which was a nice touch.

Ready for bed, we caught the shuttle back at 9:30, our last ride in the back of the tuk tuk to the hotel.

Thursday was a travel day and we took it easy. Getting up a little later than usual, though awake far too early still, then another great breakfast before booking a taxi to the airport, packing and lounging around until it was time to head off. The taxi arrived and cost a fraction of our first ride, we said goodbye to the people at the hotel, and set off. Flight delayed by half an hour, we sat in the departure lounge, me typing, Shawn playing Zombeenies, and mentally preparing for a crazy few days in Bangkok to come.

Final thoughts on Luang Prabang?

I was surprised at how much there was to do. We probably could have spent another day or two there, just to see everything but I don’t feel I really missed out. 

There’s another popular waterfall called Tat See that we could have gone to but the hotel manager said it’s not got much water in it at the moment.

I would have liked to see the other Free the Bears sanctuary and maybe check out the palace or go see the cave with the thousand buddha statues. 

But overall, I think we saw some awesome things, I enjoyed it all a lot, and the pace was probably just right. Really recommend checking out Luang Prabang.