Day 47 - Phu Si and SAI Waterfalls

I woke up today at 6am to the sound of power tools since the neighbours are building a new guesthouse. Ahh well. I had breakfast at a cafe called Joma just at the bottom of the street from the guesthouse. I had a multigrain bagel with cream cheese for 15000 kip ($2). So expensive! This is Laos for godsake! I made sure I enjoyed it and made it last as long as possible!

After breakfast I went to Phu Si to see the temples on the mountain. There were 300 odd steps to climb to get to the top and stray cats all over the place with barbed tails. In the afternoon I headed to the SAI waterfalls on a tuk tuk for 40 min. Upon arrival I needed to board the sketchiest boat in history to go across the river. They piled about 10 people into a really long boat made for about 4 people. The boat was insanely unsturdy and the felt like it was going to tip over. It didn't help that the guy driving the boat was simultaneously bailing water out of it. As I walked to the waterfall I saw a bunch of people all mashed up and bleeding from being in the falls. It was quite easy to make the decision to not go into the water. I made it in to take a few photos though. This was a strange place. Super touristy but beautiful. They had a bunch of elephants that you could pay to bathe. It was quite sad though because the elephants were chained up when they weren't being bathed by tourists.

The rest of the day was very relaxing. I had a massage for 40000kip and at pork noodle soup at a food stall down a random alleyway. It was the best massage I had since I was in China. She cracked my back, fingers and toes. It was great.

Since I'll be flying to Vietnam, I bought a flight ticket from a travel agent downtown from Vientiane to Hanoi. It was the sketchiest ticket I've ever seen. Just a few words printed on the page with what seemed to look like all the right information for $144 US. Let's hope it works.