Cock-a-doodle-don't

If you looked up Luang Prabang in a guide book or on the internet you'd be informed that it is 'one of the most sophisticated towns in Southeast Asia' filled with French colonial villas, riverfront restaurants and more smiling Buddhist monks than you could shake a stick at (although I'm not sure why you would shake a stick at a Buddhist monk, they're fairly chilled out by nature). And they'd be right - Luang Prabang is a Unesco World Heritage site, so it has to be doing something right. What they won't tell you, however, is that the place is infested by cockerels! Loud, very annoying cockerels who are unaware of their duty to crow at dawn. Not 1am. Or 2. Or any other hour before sunrise, for that matter.

There is either an infestation of cockerels or just one very persistent rooster that followed us around! We spent three nights in Luang Prabang, each of them in different hotels but each of them with air conditioning, en suite and our very own cockerel sat outside the window.

The town did offer us the opportunity to eat some of the best food we've had on our travels so far. Needless to say I ate chicken every night, hoping it would take care of our malfunctioning alarm clock.

We loved our time here. It was a charming, laid back town that offered us great food and even better sunsets.

One day we rented bicycles and explored the local area. They were brilliant, old style bikes, with a fixed gear, curved handle bars and a basket on the front. I felt like Jessica Fletcher as I whistled the theme tune of Murder, She Wrote.** Thankfully though, this wasn't Cabbat Cove and I didn't have to help any inept sherifs solve a case. Instead, we cycled out through the surrounding villages in search of a waterfall, which, despite our best efforts in the midday sun, we couldn't locate - much to the amusement of some local boys. The next day, however, we did find a waterfall - and it was well worth the wait.

'Find' is probably a strong word for what we did - I'm not sure being driven to the waterfall on a tuk tuk can be described as finding. Nevertheless, the Kuang Si waterfalls were incredible. They spilt over cliffs of various sizes, creating dozens of beautiful turquoise pools to swim in.

Steve and I had stopped on the way to the waterfalls to purchase some new swimming shorts as we had accidentally left ours drying next to a pool in Bangkok! But now, as we stood on the edge of the water alongside half of the Chinese population who seemed to be here too, we realised we should've tried them on before buying them. Steve's were so tight I was worried that if he moved he might be indecent and mine appeared to have been tailored by a blind man with little or no experience of a sewing machine.

Despite the shorts, it was a great swim.

Later that evening, Steve and Nick played football with our tuk tuk driver, whilst I tried to find some wifi to sort out the next day of our journey. We'd decided to change our plans and head south through Laos to Cambodia. Previously we thought that we'd head east to Vietnam but when we turned up at the Vietnamese embassy it transpired that they were on holiday celebrating their New Year and so we wouldn't be able to obtain visas for at least a week. Not very considerate of them!

We found an Aussie Sports Bar and watched Wales scrape a win in the Six Nations rugby, before heading back to get some sleep before our early coach trip the next morning. 

As we lay in bed we discussed what time we thought we should set our alarm. Just then a chorus of our feathered friends reminded us that we didn't need to.

**In case you are not old enough to remember - 'Murder, She Wrote' was a TV show in the 80s. It was about a lady who solved lots of murders - except she wasn't a policeman - she was a writer. I was always confused as to why so many people died when she was around - I have now come to the conclusion that she must have been an evil genius serial killer.