When I awoke this morning my eye was much better, well enough, I decided, to go sightseeing. A short distance from Luang Prabang lies the Kuang Si waterfall. Right next to it is a center for rescued bears. I’m not an animal lover so I didn’t find it that interesting, but if you are, you will like it.
When you approach the waterfall from below you will see a number of smaller subfalls and pools, each more beautiful than the previous ones. You can go swimming in some of them and normally I would be the first in the water but with the eye I didn’t want to risk it.
Some of the smaller falls on the way up
At first i thought this was the main fall
The main fall is really high and comes down in a series of steps, it’s one of the more impressive falls I’ve seen.
After the main fall the path continues but the other tourists stopped. I continued however and it was a pretty steep and difficult climb but I made it up to the top of the falls. There I could walk around in the ankle deep water just at the edge and look down.
On the other side of the city are some caves called Pak Ou. I thought they would be pretty well known just like the waterfalls but there were far fewer people there than expected. The access road was in really bad shape and I was actually about to turn back once or twice but I’m glad I persevered . The caves are on the opposite side of the river from the closest village so you have to take a boat to get there. What’s special about these caves compare with others in the region is that the people from nearby villages have filled them with Buddha figurines of all different shapes and sizes. It kind of reminds me of the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania. The lower cave is quite shallow and has enough natural light, the upper cave is deeper so you need a flashlight inside. Even though I’ve seen plenty of caves in this trip, I think these are really worth seeing.
Including transportation one day was just enough to visit both the waterfalls and the caves. I recommend them both.
When I came back I hung out at the hostel for a bit then went for some dinner together with a Dutch couple. After dinner I hiked up to the top of mount Phousi to watch the full moon. It’s really bright tonight, in fact so bright it was hard to get any good pictures of it, but it was beautiful none the less.
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