Onward

Laos continues to be awesome. Yesterday we looked at all the temples in town, and today we went to one of the most picturesque waterfalls I've ever seen. The water is greenish, and it cascades over these limestone (?) pools through a jungle that's many shades of brilliant green. It's very hard to describe, and I wish I could put a photo up to show you, but Lao connections are slow enough that uploading one pic could take hours... The waterfall has elephants that live/work nearby, and we bumped into them and their mahouts on the way up to the entrance. They're huge up close, and even with their lumbering hugeness, there's a kind of grace about them. It's certainly strengthened my resolve to do the cheesy "be a mahout for a weekend" camp where you spend a day shadowing a mahout (elephant driver/caretaker), helping him care for his elephant and learning how to ride it. It's a total tourist trap but it looks way too cool to resist.
We've just spent the evening wandering around the night market, which has been really cool. It's got some of the tastiest street food I've run into so far in my travels. One word: meat on a stick. Chris got a whole fish, but I stuck to chicken, which was delicious. And for a buck and change, you can't go wrong. Then we did a little shopping, but I'm starting to feel guilty about the 20+ kilos of stuff I'm sending Josh home with, so I've got to curb my enthusiasm a bit.
Tomorrow we're going to Vang Vien (I'm sure I'm misspelling that). We'll take a bus in the morning and hopefully arrive in the heat of the day. What passes for a cold front has been hovering over Luang Prabang for the past couple days, so it's been just a bit too cool for swimming, but I'm hoping for a scorcher because the main attraction of Vang Vien is riding down the Mekong in an inner tube. Sounds like a very relaxing way to spend an afternoon, so fingers crossed for fair weather (I know, I know, you New Englanders hate me right now...)