Capitalists v. Communists Part 1

 (Our free ride into town! haha!)

With our new found traveling friends, two Brits and two Germans, we took on Luang Prabang, a French colonial city in Laos, right on the Mekong river. These Germans and Brits were just as cheap as we were, well, nearly, and we decided to head out all together to some waterfalls outside of Luang Prabang. Of course this required another foray into the world of the tuk tuk. 

So we formulated a plan.

Whenever negotiating price for a tuk tuk the driver would quickly count all the people in the group and they would tell us a per person rate, usually several dollars per person, which was silly because it costs the same to take one person as it does to take ten. so we decided to send laura, the fiercest barterer of the Germans, over to negotiate for a taxi. The rest of us would wait out of sight for her to fix a price for the whole tuk tuk. After having agreed on the price we would then spring out of hiding and leap in the back of the taxi and demand to be taken to our location. The driver knowing we had gotten better of him just sighed and got in the truck and drove us to the waterfall.

Laos so far has let us down so I wasn't expecting anything particularly spectacular. However, when we arrived it was the most beautiful neon-blue water I'd ever seen, flowing out of the most picturesque waterfall I have ever seen. thankfully swimming was allowed, so we proceeded to jump off the waterfall swim in the lagoon and do all the things park rangers would never let you do in Yellowstone.

After this experience I was very pleased with the waterfall, and what Laos had to offer in general. It was then that we looked through the trees and noticed a path leading up to what seemed to be more waterfalls. We hiked up and found an even more beautiful waterfall and pristine lagoon sadly swimming was not allowed here. This continued for 3 sets of waterfalls until we came out upon the most magnificent waterfall I have ever seen.

Deciding we had gotten the better of Laos for the day, we decided to leave Luang Prabang the next morning while we were still ahead, however our luck had just run out. . .