My goal for today was to make it out to the Kuang Si Waterfalls about 18 miles from Luang Prabang.

Getting there

In the late morning, I found a tuk-tuk driver looking for passengers. This wasn’t hard to do, as there are many drivers who sit on their vehicles asking if passers-by need a ride, which few do in such a walkable city. The driver and I agreed on a price for me to hire him for the day, and we were off!

The 45-minute drive took me out of the city and past farms, rice fields, and villages, and then over forested mountains on winding roads.

When we got to our destination, the driver parked in a lot and I hopped out of the vehicle, hoping that he’d still be there whenever I returned!

Bears?

A road took me past food stalls and souvenir shops to a booth where I bought my entry ticket, and then signs directed me off the road and onto a dirt trail through the forest. This trail featured educational signage about the plants surrounding the trail, the layers of the forest, and the importance of biodiversity.

Then, all of the sudden, the signs started talking about bears! It turns out that a bear rescue center run by Free the Bear was built along this trail in order to house rescued bears while educating the thousands of daily visitors to the Kuang Si Falls about their plight.

In the enclosures on either side of the trail I saw a large number of moon bears, though it sounds like they work with other species, too.

Waterfalls!

After a bit more of a walk down the trail, I made it to the first section of the waterfalls. The turquoise water was absolutely stunning, and I was already feeling prepared to jump right in! I figured that I’d see the whole thing and capture some photos before my swim, though. There was a path to the left of the water, and I walked up the trail.

The waterfalls kept taking my breath away. There were many layers to them, some shallow, some forming deep pools, some flowing down over shelf after shelf of small waterfalls, some coming down in meters-high cascades. There were people swimming in some areas, while other spots were marked to be kept free of swimmers. At one point, I passed an old waterwheel that remained from a village that used to be here.

I kept thinking that I must be at the top of the falls, only to find another layer ahead of me. That is, until I reached the true top, which acted as a perfect grand finale. The main waterfall had a 200 foot drop, which I could watch from a wooden bridge that spanned the topmost pool. It was simply stunning.

After getting my fill of this view, I walked down to one of the middle tiers of the falls where lots of other people were swimming, and jumped in. The water was cool, clear, and lovely to swim in.

Not only did I have people swimming alongside me, but thousands of little fish were swimming there, too. These were the type of fish that are used in fish spa treatments, so they were very keen to nibble on me. They especially seemed to like going after some of the scabs I had on my legs! This wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but it was definitely odd, and I generally kept my limbs moving around so the fish would be inclined to stay away.

An aside about butterflies

I’ve been trying to find a moment to talk about the butterflies on this trip for a while now, but I can’t not talk about them after today. They were everywhere! Half a dozen white ones traveling in a line, black-and-purple ones the size of sparrows, red and yellow and orange and black ones of every size, all zooming around at the same time! They were amazing!

Of course, no matter how frantically I tried to point my camera towards them, I didn’t get a single good butterfly photo today. But I’ll include a couple from this past week!

Heading home

After I had spent a lovely amount of time floating in the natural pools, I changed out of my bathing suit and into dry clothes and retraced my steps toward the parking lot (buying a mango-papaya-banana smoothie along the way). I found my driver and hopped back into his tuk-tuk, and we headed back to Luang Prabang.

I happened to take some photos out of the back of the tuk-tuk during this drive that I think show a very real side to life out here.

Sunset

I timed my day so that I would have plenty of time to drop off my backpack at the hotel and then climb up Mount Phousi in time for the sunset. The climb took a lot less time than I expected (though the 350 or so uneven steps up the hill were still a challenge!), so I ended up being in my sunset-viewing spot about an hour before sunset.

Fortunately, I did not end up being bored. Lao teens came up to this spot in order to practice their English like the ones I had encountered yesterday at the night market. One fourteen year-old in particular, Mong, came right up to me and started chatting, and I spent the next two hours with him. He asked me all about my life, and I asked him about his. His parents are farmers in a village about an hour away from Luang Prabang, and he and his four siblings (of whom I eventually met two others) were living in the city to get a good education. This kid is constantly working, going from Lao school in the morning to English school in the afternoon to the library to read, and then finding English-speakers to talk to in all his free moments beginning at 5 in the morning and ending at 11 at night. And his work was paying off! He told me that he only began learning English eight months ago, and he was doing an amazing job of holding a conversation.

Friends and siblings and friends-of-siblings of his kept coming over to join in on the conversation, and we eventually had a solid group going! After the sun had set, we walked down the hill together, and most of the others departed. Mong wanted me to meet his older brother, though, who was at the night market. On the way, I bought myself a lemon juice and Mong a banana shake (both were well less than a dollar, but Mong says he’d never be able to afford night market prices), which he shared with his friends. I did meet the brother and some of his friends, but at that point I was exhausted and said my goodbyes.

Those kids were so much fun and offered me a lot of insight about life here.