Wonderful Waterfalls

We had decided at the bowling that we would meet the following morning and take a trip to check out the waterfalls that were close to Luang Prabang, but except for a little write up in the Lonely Planet and the hoards of tuk tuk drivers constantly asking us if we would like a lift there we knew very little about it.

So, anything but bright and early we met the next morning and there was a few new boat people to add to our group. Two dutch girls and Sean and Jamie from Miami who we’d met at the bowling. Plus a mysterious short, tanned and bald man; seemingly no-one knew who he was, where he came from or how he had heard about our meeting. He just sat outside our hotel waiting for our uncoordinated, hungover group to assemble while moaning all the time in a German accent about how slow we were to get ready and go. It turned out that his name was Martin and he was a troubled man. Waterfalls were his crack and he was in deep withdrawal. Seeing as he professed to know an awful lot about our daytrip destination, we let him sort out the tuk tuk driver and before we knew it we were on the 30km journey to the waterfalls. When we arrived we had to pay an entrance fee of 20000 kip each (about £2) this seemed a little expensive but we were told it was well worth it – so paid up and strolled into the park. A short walk later, much to our surprise we found there was a bear sanctuary, it was a great set up for the bears with a large amount of space and lots of things for them to climb, hang from and lie on (there was a bear hammock which one bear looked incredibly comfortable in). It was a conservation and rescue project as many of these black bears had been rescued from places where their habit was being destroyed or where they were being farmed for their bile (it apparently has many uses in Chinese medicine and is sold on the black market). The eventual aim was to try and put as many of the bears back in the wild but unfortunately this was not always possible with the farmed ones. After some bear spotting and seeing a few rather large and scary looking spiders hanging on the fence we continued further into the park.

The first part which was quite short just felt like walking through woodland. We then came to a clearing where we saw the most beautiful natural limestone pools. They were light yellow limestone and the water within them was a most wonderful turquoise blue. The first pool we saw had a rope swing tied to the tree which dangled over the water, and there was a 4m ish waterfall cascading down into it. It was so perfect looking it was hard to believe what we were looking at was completely natural. We all wanted to jump straight into this pool, but were told that was just the start, and our mysterious guide led us up a flight of wooden stairs to the side of the pool. We passed a few more pools that according to the signs were ‘don’t swimming areas’ and then we were back into wood land but could hear the running water. We climbed for a while which was hard work in the heat and then about half way up the flight of stairs we were led off, it didn’t look like a track at all, but we followed. The next challenge was climbing a load of rocks. Some of it had a small amount of water flowing over it other bit were completely dry, they were however all steep and like most of the other rock in the part were these smooth limestone formations. We all battled and pushed and pulled each other up the slimy stone and eventually got to the top where we were then led through a small amount of standing water surrounded by trees with very slippery rocks underneath. I had begun to hope all this effort was going to be worth it. I wasn’t disappointed, and nor was any of the rest of the group, when we finally got to the clearing we saw one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. We were at a pool which was one tier down from the top of what must have been a 8 or 9 tiered waterfall. This first tier was stunning, about 5m in diameter with a waterfall based in the middle and then many points horseshoed around the pool from which you could jump or dive off into the pool. The other fantastic thing about it was once in the pool you could swim to the very edge of the tier and look down and see all the other equally beautiful but not as large tiers stepped below. The water in the pool was very still just filling up and then cascading down, so you could sit on the edge very easily and take in the view. It felt like we were in a theme park, it was just so perfectly designed for swimming and jumping into and the colours were so vivid it just didn’t feel real. And no safety barriers either, to look down the main waterfall drop from the edge of the swimming pool was quite exhilarating! It was such a wonderful natural feature. I did a few very small jumps of 1 or 2m while Rob and some of the other members of the group did some 6 or 7m ones. Once we had swam for a little bit, and relaxed we actually began to get a little cold as the water was surprisingly not very warm, we decided to head back down towards the bottom and check out the pool with the rope swing. As we descended down the other side (we were back in woodland now) it became increasingly steep and soon the group was split up. As we knew very little about where we were going I had worn my flip flops. It was definitely not the right footwear for the occasion and soon I had taken them off and Rob was helping me slowly navigate the way down the slope. Once at the bottom we soon realised that the others had stopped on one of the middle tiers! There was no way we were going to climb back up there and meet them so we stayed at the bottom and waited for them to make their way down.

When we were reunited again as a group we headed towards the first pool we had seen that day with the rope swing. I spent some time watching several people including Rob fling themselves into the water using the rope swing and one thai girl (from another group of tourists) who once she had swung into the middle of the pool lost the bottle to let go and rather painfully crash back into the tree with a chorus of oooooo owwwww and general “that must have hurt!” murmurings from the crowd of people watching.

Then Rob swum up to me and suggested we jumped from the waterfall feeding the pool. It was about 3 or 4m tall and certainly the highest thing I had ever thrown myself from and although nervous I agreed to Rob’s suggestion and moments later I found myself at the top of the waterfall cutting the circulation from Rob’s hand wishing I had never agreed. He counted to three and I shut my eyes and took a massive jump. Moments later I hit the water, I surfaced with the adrenaline pumping slightly shocked at the fact I had just done it and a beaming smile from Rob. It was frightening but great fun – and a cool way of concluding the day at the waterfall.

We jumped back into the tuk tuk and just outside of town our Germanic guide jumped off and vanished into the distance, to sit and wait for his next group of tourists and waterfall fix. Just as mysteriously as he had arrived he left us – but he showed us some great things we would never had found without him.

We got dropped off at the hotel and I popped into the bathroom for a shower when stuck to wall before me was one of the large black and spiky spiders we saw hanging from the fence at the bear sanctuary. I adopted girly mode and let out a scream and ran to Rob to take his manly duty and sort it out, a quick flip flop movement later and the spider was a squashed ball on the floor, I asked Rob if he was sure if it was dead, and he showed me the 4 or so legs that had been left on the wall which helped convince me! I suppose going just over 4 weeks with out a creepy crawly encounter like this was not bad going?