Final days in Luang Prabang, Laos 12-19-09

Back in town we rested up from the trek for a day and then set off for the Tad Sae Waterfalls, where we heard we could zip-line over the rainforest canopy from tree to tree and above waterfalls. To get there we first had to hire a tuk-tuk driver who brought us 40 minutes out of town towards the falls, then we had to pay for a little long-tail boat ride up a river before arriving to the falls (in total it cost $4 a person). Since I have some family who live in Hawaii, I’ve been lucky enough to have zip lined over mountains and valleys before, but this zip lining was much different. We had two guides helping us, one would go first and zip line to the tree ahead of us, while the other would stay back to strap our harnesses to the metal cable cord above and send us on our way. Wooden platforms were nailed around each massive tree, which we stood on before swinging to another tree and platform.

Our harnesses and belaying clips held strong and I was the first to take off and test out the line. It was fantastic! Flying and soaring across a line while towering over tree tops and water… only to be catapulted into a guide at the end who had a huge smile on his face and wide open arms to catch me so I wouldn’t hit the tree behind him. It was great! Will is scared of heights and sat hugging a tree, literally, for a good 10 minutes before he surfaced up enough courage to give the line a go. And he loved it too, although his shaking legs hinted otherwise. Rich did great and we all took turns taking pictures of each other zipping along. A couple tree top platforms required us to drop vertically instead of horizontally to another platform. For these, our guide worked like a magician tying up the rope and slowly lowered us down on-by-one to the platform below, and then let out huge slack in the rope to scare us half to death before grabbing the rope again and lowering us slowly again.

After the 20 zip lines we took off our gear and dove into the chilly pool of water at the bottom of the falls. Most of the time swimming I was trying to catch my breath from the shock of how cold the water was! But it was a nice was a nice end to the day. Back at our hostel we each made arrangements to leave Luang Prabang, Will and Rich were headed for Bangkok, Thailand and I was off to Hanoi, Vietnam. We had a celebratory dinner together at a nice restaurant (each shelled out about 5 dollars on our fantastic meals) and then we randomly met up with some friends of ours at the Laos Laos Garden restaurant. We drank beers while playing some sort of bunny drinking game and later piled into a tuk-tuk to take us all to the bowling alley.

Our group of six was pretty drunk at this point and the bowling alley became our own private party. Everyone at the alley would walk over to see what the commotion was and then laugh hysterically at the drunken boys sliding down the bowling alley towards the pins or at them play fighting in the bowling lanes. We were warned about getting kicked out four times, but I think the guys who worked there were kinda enjoying the show too, so they let us stay. My score started out strong with spares and strikes, but as I sobered up my bowling has a reverse effect and I ended up in 4^th place. The night was great and we all hugged and embraced to say our good byes before parting.

Will and Rich left at 6:00am for the bus station to find a Bus named Luang Prabang—Bangkok waiting for them. My flight left 7 hours later and I had some time to relax on my last day before making my way to the airport. I had one last Laos meal near the airport and then I was ready to depart, alone. Hanoi, Vietnam here I come!