DearTouring: Luang Prabang

Morning in Luang Prabang on the shores of the Mekong river. We took a stroll around the small peninsula upon which the town sits.

Taking the steps toward the river banks.

The old town of Luang Prabang has a beautiful maze of little streets and alleys with exotic flowers of all kind.

Light fixtures made from spray painted egg cartons.

Somewhere halfway up to the top of mount Phusi, located in the center of Luang Prabang, we saw a cat sunbathing next to a shrine with an imprint of Buddha's foot.

One of the temples on mount Phusi with dragons guarding its gates.

This is a tradition that we encountered in Laos, you take a cup full of wooden sticks with numbers written on them, you shake them violently until only 1 falls out. Next there is a box with many different short notes of paper in front of you, all with printed numbers on them. You pick out the written note with the number of the stick that fell out and read its contents. Unfortunately we have no idea what Anna's number meant since all the written text was in the local dialect and we couldn't really discern what it meant.

So far every place we visit has chicken and roosters roaming freely in the streets. We keep noticing how different they are from place to place. This particular breed caught our attention with its long bare neck.

Luang Prabang's royal palace museum - a fine example of the city's famous red roof temples.

Local rice whisky (lao-Laos), fermenting on snake skins, scorpions, geckos and other poisonous creatures.

As we passed yet another temple, we were distracted by loud drum beating. It turns out these were young students on their path to monkhood.

One of the must see things in Luang Prabang is the gorgeous waterfall Kuang Si. It's a bit far from the city, so we decided to get a motorbike to get to it. This time Anna was the designated driver. It was her first time riding, she learned fast.

The falls begin in shallow pools atop a hill side, leading to the main fall cascading down 60 m (200 ft) into turquoise lagoons.

The waterfall itself in the background. You have to catch a picture moment very skillfully with no tourists in sight.

We followed a narrow steep trail to the top of the fall where you can cross the pools that create the waterfall. Not many people make it to the top since it's a bit of a challenging climb, but it's worth it.