tat kuang si is the giant, multi-tiered waterfall outside of luang prabang. not sure if the pic above shows the scale of the falls, but its a big sucker. big like a five story building... only there's 1 five story building cascading into a giant pool halfway down, and then another five story building of water falling for the second part of the falls. its amazing.
theres a bunch of smaller cascades below the big one. these form pools great for swimming and rope jumping.
from the top of the falls we went looking for more pools further upstream. i had remembered a sweet swimming spot from 5 years ago, but couldn't remember where it was. so laura and i tromped upstream on dry stream beds, following what could have been a trail if you had a vivid imagination. turns out it wasn't a trail. and it turns out that laos mud is like quicksand: i stepped confidently into what seemed like solid earth only to sink up to my knee in mud. i had to stop sinking, so i jumped in with my other foot, sinking just as far down. it was like a freakin' cartoon... the more you struggled to get out, the further up shits creek you were. luckily laura was within arm's reach along with a few sturdy tree branches. and so ended our self-guided trek through laos's backcountry.
the day prior we caught a tuk-tuk with 3 folks from australia and new zealand and went out to the tat sae waterfall. its much smaller, but equally gorgeous. and far less crowded.
the aussie/kiwi crew were tons of fun to spend a day with. we hiked up the tiered falls and up to hill-top field. saw the remnants of the last corn harvet and tons of (what i think are) rubber trees. and a strange ladder to nowhere.
we got to feed an elephant on the way there. there's a video up on the
vimeo page.
1 comment:
laotian proverb (or scavenger hunt clue): follow the ladder to nowhere to an elephant's back
Post a Comment