French baguettes in Laos

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The small town of Luang Prabang is quite possibly the most beautiful Asain city in the world. It's quaint, quite and filled with lovely French architecture. We spent multiple days walking the tree lined streets, eating at the extremely cheap vegetarian buffets and drinking at the very popular Utopia bar. slide shows below

Filled with lovely temples like the Haw Kham Royal Palace and Wat Xieng Thong there is no lack of inspiration for a photographer with a fully charged camera. In all reality though you would be missing out if you never left the city center. Just outside the main city you can explore and walk up the sides of the beautiful Kuang Si Falls or swim at the base of the 200ft falls in small turquoise pools of water. 

Crossing borders

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Crossing borders always seems to be an adventure for us. Nothing ever goes as planned, everything always costs more than expected and somehow I always seem to be hung over on the day. I'm sure the last one has something to do with always feeling like we should leave every country with one final good night of partying. Crossing into Laos tested our patience with being ripped off that's for sure. We certainly knew better than to go with a tour but Thailand just makes it so easy to book everything and for some reason you think this one will be better than the last. 

Who would consider that you would have to pay a middle man (lady) to actually cross into Laos. Let alone pay her more because you don't have American dollars. I guess Thai Baht wasn't good enough even though we were actually in Thailand? After getting swindled out of an extra $25 she finally took us down the street so we could walk across the river. 

Fortunately once we entered into Laos we we're greeted with smiles, baguettes and our boats for the two day journey down the mighty Mekong. The trip was long, hot and extremely loud, but we became good friends with a lovely couple from Manchester and spent most of our time with them, which made it actually quite fun.