( Overview
/ Carly in Asia
Did a bit of exploring around the town of Luang Prabang today before taking a sunset cruise on the Mekong Delta.
One of my biggest issues has been that's in low season for tourists in SE Asia because it's unbearably hot and the monsoon rains are coming any minute now. Sounds like it'd be a blessing to have less tourists & crowds to deal with, but it's actually making things MORE challenging as all the tour operators can't generate enough people to get a tour together. There's a small handful of great tour companies who have pages and pages of brochures advertising multi day treks through the mountainside, kayaking to caves, mountain biking, rafting, regular biking (so basically I'll the things that I'd love to do) but the tours can't run for just one person. I'm at the mercy of other tourists to sign up for these tours (and pick activities that interest me). I was really looking for a multi day hike, but according to the tour guides, nobody's been interested in those for a long time. There's also some more commercial, less highly rated tour companies which do hurried tours of the top tourists activities, but that's not really my style.
When I stopped into the tour offices in the morning, I got lucky and there were two tours scheduled over the weekend with a company called Tiger Trails (the tours only had 2 other participants each!) so I signed up for a trek on Sunday but wasn't interested in their kayaking tour on Saturday (it was just a bit overpriced). I popped into their office again right before my sunset cruise to see if any other tours were on for Saturday and met an American girl who was trying to arrange a private bike tour to the Kuang Si waterfall. We got to chatting and eventually decided we'd take a Tuk Tuk to the waterfalls together instead of biking, as the tour company wanted to charge us $60 each for mountain bikes, lunch, a support vehicle and half a day of our own sweat labor,
I also convinced her to come along on the sunset cruise with me, which turned out to be a good thing as we were the only people there! Usually they only run the cruise if there's a minimum of 3 people but because I had prepaid for my ticket and the boat owner also owns my hotel, they let the boat go out with just two of us. It was gorgeous views and the trip was really relaxing. The "cruise director" was also American so we had some good chat over mojitos and beer,
One of my biggest issues has been that's in low season for tourists in SE Asia because it's unbearably hot and the monsoon rains are coming any minute now. Sounds like it'd be a blessing to have less tourists & crowds to deal with, but it's actually making things MORE challenging as all the tour operators can't generate enough people to get a tour together. There's a small handful of great tour companies who have pages and pages of brochures advertising multi day treks through the mountainside, kayaking to caves, mountain biking, rafting, regular biking (so basically I'll the things that I'd love to do) but the tours can't run for just one person. I'm at the mercy of other tourists to sign up for these tours (and pick activities that interest me). I was really looking for a multi day hike, but according to the tour guides, nobody's been interested in those for a long time. There's also some more commercial, less highly rated tour companies which do hurried tours of the top tourists activities, but that's not really my style.
When I stopped into the tour offices in the morning, I got lucky and there were two tours scheduled over the weekend with a company called Tiger Trails (the tours only had 2 other participants each!) so I signed up for a trek on Sunday but wasn't interested in their kayaking tour on Saturday (it was just a bit overpriced). I popped into their office again right before my sunset cruise to see if any other tours were on for Saturday and met an American girl who was trying to arrange a private bike tour to the Kuang Si waterfall. We got to chatting and eventually decided we'd take a Tuk Tuk to the waterfalls together instead of biking, as the tour company wanted to charge us $60 each for mountain bikes, lunch, a support vehicle and half a day of our own sweat labor,
I also convinced her to come along on the sunset cruise with me, which turned out to be a good thing as we were the only people there! Usually they only run the cruise if there's a minimum of 3 people but because I had prepaid for my ticket and the boat owner also owns my hotel, they let the boat go out with just two of us. It was gorgeous views and the trip was really relaxing. The "cruise director" was also American so we had some good chat over mojitos and beer,
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