We started with a 9 o’clock departure time to travel to the Royal Palace Museum. We looked through countless rooms, artefacts, framed pictures of members of the former Royal family, and gifts donated by countries like USA, Australia, Russia and Britain. One room was particularly memorable, as every surface of the walls and ceiling were covered in gold leaf and mosaics.
Next we began our bike ride. While the morning got hotter, we set out to tour the city and country side. Managing the streets of Luang Prabang on a bike was tough. We can definitely say that we were relieved to reach our first stop, which was a Buddhist temple. Up to 35 monks can live in one temple, and if others came them they would need to relocate and find another temple to live in. In one of the buildings, which was a Buddhist chapel, lay an enormous golden Buddha statue. Our guide Joy also told us a lot about his life in the temple as child.
After that, we got back on our bikes and rode towards to country side. We headed towards a handicrafts centre out of the city, where we learned how the local people produce a paper called ‘sha’ paper. This paper has a rougher, bumpier texture than normal paper at home. Some sheets even had petals and leaves dried into the paper. Hunter helped decorate a sheet of paper which was being worked on as we walked through.
The temperature continued to rise and we were all starting to feel progressively more tired as the morning went on, but that didn’t stop us from having to ride another 7km to lunch. Luckily the road we were on was fairly quiet, but it was not paved and and the potholes made our bike ride difficult. The roundabouts were also quite challenging! Everyone was really proud of themselves when we were done and our lunch in an air conditioned restaurant was much needed.
After lunch, we headed to some mini vans for an hour trip towards a beautiful Krungi waterfalls. The waterfall was a popular spot to take photos. There were many tourists doing the same thing as all of us kids.. taking photos. It was a relief to get a break from the heat as the the mist from the base of waterfall hit us a gave us some cool relief. As we progressed further down the waterfall, we came across many tourists swimming in rock pools at the base of the waterfall. At the end of the trail, we came across a brown bear sanctuary which was home to about 10 brown bears, several of which had missing limbs. These bears had been rescued from places that were keeping them for their bike. Just before the sanctuary, our group discovered a huge spider hanging from a web above our heads. Sent so many of the group running, screaming in the other direction! After our trip at the waterfall was over, we got back in the mini vans, greatly anticipating our clean laundry that we were about to go and collect from the laundromats.
We finished our day having dinner in groups of four or more, with some people taking the opportunity to pig out on hamburgers. Near the end of the journey of the night market, we bumped into the other TLC group and were greeted with hugs and screams as we shared stories, but it did not last long as we had to head home to our own hotels.
Overall a very action packed day! We are excited for what else is to come on our slowly ending trip that we wish would last forever.
By Zach and Jade
