Yesterday, we spent the day on the river in a slow boat (known to us as those scary-looking wooden boats) for a long and relaxing ride from Nong Khiaw back to Luang Prabang. On the way we soaked up some more beautiful scenery, stopped at Pak Ou Cave and had lunch at a restaurant at the entrance of the Mekong River before arriving to Luang Prabang where dark clouds were looming overhead….
We strapped on our backpacks and headed toward our guesthouse expecting to arrive dry within about 15 mins…. but instead, we got caught in a good ole monsoon rain storm with all of our belongings riding on our backs! It made for quite the adventurous trek back to our guesthouse!
Aboard our slow boat to Luang Prabang
View from our boat on the Nam Ou
Our captain had to make an impromptu toilet stop for our weak bladders
Enjoying our slow boat ride to Luang Prabang
View from our boat on the Nam Ou
We were lucky enough to see an elephant eating lunch next to the Nam Ou
Our boat took at pit-stop at Pak Ou Caves where there is hundreds of very small Buddhist figures
Hundreds of very small Buddhist figures are laid out over the wall shelves in the lower cave
Boat docked on the Mekong
View of the Mekong on our way to the upper cave
A boat that is a little more crowded next to us on the Mekong – we would have had the ‘pleasure’ of taking this boat had we opted for the ‘local’ slow boat rather than the ‘private’. Fortunately, we didn’t get enough people to necessitate a larger local boat…. our private seats were much more comfortable 🙂
A similar boat riding next to us on the Mekong
House Boats along the Mekong
Amanda happy about her solution to stay dry in the downpour
Amanda ready to tackle the flash-flood in Luang Prabang on our way to our guest house
Amanda trekking through the torrential downpour to our guest house in Luang Prabang
Amanda & Adam
Wow!! That is quite the rainfall. It certainly comes down with a fury! How long is their rainy season?
In Laos we’ve been told they have 2 seasons: a wet and a dry season. So I think this rainy weather should last approximately 6 months, however, despite the fact that when it rains it pours, these downpours have been fairly brief on otherwise quite warm and sunny days 🙂
Wow! We are loving all the pictures! Seeing a wild elephant, amazing! Auntie Jamie was just asking about the wild life, and if you had run across many snakes (she hopes not) !
The elephant was amazing – I’ve never seen a group of tourists pull out their cameras so fast in my life! Luckily we have not seen many snakes in our travels yet – at least not wild snakes… Apparently poisonous snakes soaked in alcohol along with scorpions makes for good medicinal alcohol so we’ve seen a number of eery-looking jars on our peruses through the markets…