Water Fall #2 Where in the World is Jayne (9)

Havent had access to a computer recently so Im kınd of behınd on my trıp wrıte-ups. Rıght now Im ın Turkey--wıth a Turkısh keyboard so excuse the mıstakes--but wıll contınue to wrıte up the trıp.


Visiting waterfalls is a big thing in Laos and for Jayne and Nancy the visits always seems to turn out to be an adventure. We had joined in with a German couple to take a tuk-tuk out to one of the waterfalls near Luang Probang. When we got there we decided that two hours would be enough time so we would meet in the parking lot at 2:00. We started up the trail and saw a map showing a trail on each side of the falls and a bridge at the bottom of the highest falls connecting the two trails. It has always been my contention that one should do a round trip if possible--why come back the way you came when there is something else available? So, we crossed over the little bridge and started up the trail. It wasn't a very good trail to start wıth and got worse a we went--mud, slippery, etc. About 10 minutes in the the hike we met two people coming down that were having a big problem with their sandals getting sucked into the mud. By this time I'm congratulating myself on choosing the right trail to go up because I would sure hate to come down this one and I could see the people on the other side going up and down with no problem. I fınd goıng up much eaıser than goıng down. We continued our hike past lots of little waterfalls and then into the jungle before we came to the main big falls. It was a lovely sight but there was one disturbing factor. I've told you about the floods they have been having in Southeast Asia and the volume of this waterfall was benefiting from all that rain--so much so that it washed out the bridge we were suppose to cross. When ıt fınally sunk ın that we would have to go down thıs traıl I muttered a few choise words. Nancy is a real trooper and said, "We can do this. We've had experience!" This is true, but where was the little guy to hold mama's hand? Luckily there were enough trees and roots to grab onto that I only fell once. When we finally got down we had less than 15 minutes to go up the well traveled trail. We basically ran up it and didn't get to stop at all the places that looked like fun. There was one place where kids were standing on the edge of a falls and jumping out to land in a pool at the bottom of it. They also had some swinging ropes to land in pools. We missed all the fun but one has to look on the brıght sıde. The good vıew of thıs magnıfıcent water fall was from the crappy traıl sıde.