Lovely French couple travelling the world in their Defender

Adamant that he is up to riding the bike today, Flo decided that we would go to Kuang Si to see the waterfall (even if we wouldn’t swim in it) and so that I could see the bears at the bear rescue there. We had originally planned this visit for an afternoon but Flo’s sickness made it fall through.

The ride there was about 30km long. We stopped once at the roadside when we thought that a modified Defender from France had a problem (which wasn’t the case) and stayed for a short chat with the French couple who spend their retirement travelling the world. They were very cute. 🙂

As I said, tourists are around

Parking the bike, we entered the “park” where the path leads you through the bear rescue first. We saw a couple of them but then they were called into the closed off part for food so we went on to see the waterfall before coming back for the bears. The waterfall is amazing! I know it is touristy and yes, many tourists are swimming in it but…it is so beautiful. The water has a turquoise colour. You approach it from the bottom where the water runs over some low steps and swimming is allowed here. Further up, the steps become even lower looking how I imagine the pink and white terraces in NZ would have looked like before their destruction.

The actual Kuang Si waterfall

The last view you are treated to is the actual, tall waterfall. Again, it’s a beautiful sight. We were very happy that we went on this detour. To make the visit even better, we managed to buy yummy and cheap rice paper spring rolls from a local lady in the park rather than sitting down in the expensive restaurant. So we took our little packed lunch close to one of the waterfalls and happily munched away before returning to the bears.

On the way there, we saw the French couple again, waved shortly and recommended the local lady for lunch. Luckily, Flo remembers way more of his French lessons than I do so it was actually okay to talk. Back at the bears, ALL of them seemed to be out and about, looking for hidden food or just hanging out. One of them gave his best impression of a bear skin rug while a super fluffy one sat at a “table” eating something.

A snap shot of a butterfly on the way out

It was already 1pm when we left so the 360km to Phonsavan were out of the picture. However, we just started on the journey to see how far we would make it. Not wanting to retrace our steps for too long, we now took the old road down from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. This one is in worse repair as it is significantly older than the “new” one we had taken on the way up. It is also more frequented by tour buses and apparently made for scooters as it twists and turns so sharply that it even effected us on the motorbike…at least speed-wise. Still, the landscape was pretty to both sides.

Somewhere on this road, we passed a sprinter with an Austrian number plate. This is usually a good indicator for overland travelers so we stopped at the next opportunity. And yes, the sprinter pulled up right behind us. Werner and Susi (www.naglwitz.com, it’s in German though) are travelling from Austria to Australia but in intervals of 6 to 8 weeks before returning home to their jobs. This way, it took them more than two years to get to Laos but they didn’t have to completely quit everything at home. More importantly, they didn’t have to save all of their travelling money in one go.

The great view from our abandoned guest house

At 4.30pm, with the sun already low above the horizon, Flo saw a roadside guest house by chance. He liked the look of it as it sat on the hillside, having a view so we stopped and asked for a room. Being on the cheaper side, we paid and asked for food. This ended in a rude-sounding conversation between two of the ladies and then the answer that food was not available. Slightly caught on the wrong foot, we looked around. The nicer one of the ladies than explained that we could eat out somewhere else in the village. First, we had trouble finding the place before it turned out that it really only was up the road from the guest house. Serving up a delicious vegetarian noodle soup, we then retired to our room.

No one who we had identified as the owners was still around, the shop tightly shut and really, it just looked abandoned when we were back. The only other person, also staying in the guest house tonight, was a dude with a Kalashnikov on his back who was busy putting his scooter into the hallway when we arrived. A dark, almost empty guest house didn’t feel too nice but it seemed to fill up some more before we went to bed.

The room turned out to be not so clean in the end as Flo had to dispose of a big spider before we realized that the bed or at least the pillows were molding. 🙁 Again though, I forget to take a picture as an example of one of our shabby cribs along the way.