Yeah! More Elephants! And kayaking!

Kayaking on the Nam Khan River, awesome views and so peaceful.
nHow low can he go?!
After the bath, we are all squeaky clean!
Kuang Si waterfall, one of the layers with a swimming hole below.
Pak Ou cave looking out onto the Mekong River

I decided I wanted to see more of the area around Luang Prabang and booked myself on a 2 day combo tour. I was the only one doing this specific tour so the first day me and my very young guide, Pang, who had an instant crush on me....here we go again.....went to the Pak Ou Caves. It's just off the Mekong River and is literally crammed full of thousands of Buddha statues of various shapes and sizes. Further up a couple of hundred stairs in the +30 degrees there was another cave as well which was hardly worth the effort but good for the exercise (keep thinking positive) then back onto the hour boat ride to cool off.
After that we toured a few villages which ended up walking past tables of handicrafts for sale and glancing over at their homes but I did get to try a shot of Lao Lao Whiskey, not sure what burns more going down that or the snake whiskey! Then off to the beautiful Kaung Si Waterfall. It was stunning to see, lots of swimming 'pools' and layers and you could hike to the top which I did! I so badly needed a swim after my day only to be told eagerly by Pang to go ahead but I only had 5 minutes before we had to leave. I chose not to and when we arrived at the Eco Lodge near the elephant village I enjoyed a nice long shower! Off to an awesome dinner where I luckily met a group consisting of an American, Australians, German and Dutch that I would be spending the next day with.
Up at 6:30am with a wake up holler from my friend, Linda, as Pang got the times wrong (he's a new guide, probably cause he just graduated!) and dressed quickly in my Elephant 'suit' and down to the river to go retrieve our elephants for a bath. I climbed on top of my elephant with very little direction and almost promptly flew over his head on top of mine except when I screamed (a little) they told me quickly how to hang on and where to stick my legs to 'drive' properly without falling over. Still took a bit of getting used to but by the time we got back to the river I was a pro, almost. Bath time in the river was so fun, some of the elephants were so playful slapping the water with their trunks and everyone literally got bathed. Mine laid down so he was pretty much immersed and then used his nose to spray water back on himself and me too, it's like he knew what he was doing!
After breakfast we got to go on a ride, much like the one I had in Thailand, only for some reason they let an Italian guy drive our elephant at the start who had his own agenda and we ended up going down a very steep cliff like embankment. I told him as we were going down and hanging on for dear life with the guides all panicked and yelling that he does not get a tip! I am waiting for a picture still from the people in front of us, they said it was priceless.
After we got down the hill the Italian hopped off and ran up the hill and out of site.....I think he was a little freaked out, didn't see him again until the end and he said he wasn't supposed to be on that part of the tour. So how did he get to driving our elephant?! Anything goes here in Laos, very laid back people here. It's great most of the time!
After lunch we headed off for our kayaking adventure. The big part of the adventure was getting there, a 1/2 hour ride on a Tuk Tuk with open sides, sort of like sitting in the back of a truck but with benches and railings on the sides so we don't bounce out!
By the time we arrived to the start point we were so covered in dirt even my really white friend from Holland, Linda, even looked tanned! We jumped into the river to get rid of the grime and then I was in heaven as I got my very own kayak to paddle downstream for 3 hours. What a beautiful, peaceful journey it was. Very odd in SE Asia, you really don't see any animals, reptiles or even birds along the river. Some people say it's because they hunt and eat so many of them but I prefer to think maybe cause its the dry season and they all went south (or north) for the season.