Sunday Drive to the Waterfall

On Sunday, sometimes it's hard to keep the kids from watching The Lorax or Wreck-it Ralph for the tenth time in ten days, so we decided to take a drive up to see "the waterfall" that we heard about from Matt's coworkers.  There are actually two waterfalls, but one you have to hike a little ways to, so we decided to just go to the closer one, Thad Leuk or Tad Leuk, and just enjoy the journey. The kids slept the whole way there, almost, so Matt and I had a chance to chat and that was really fun and sorely needed because Matt is working a LOT.

It was really cool to see rice paddies on both sides of the street. We also passed several little villages with little markets, some cattle grazing within inches of the road, lots of interesting vehicles, and a few crazy drivers. It is really beautiful here, and it's an unfamiliar beauty, which brings something more to the experience somehow. It's hard to describe. I can't even count how many times we said something like, "I can't believe we live here." or "We live in Laos." It's pretty weird. We drove for two hours to get to the national park, and then it took another half hour or more to go through the rough terrain to the waterfall.

 The jungle.

 You'll notice there's nothing preventing you from falling in... to your death. That's partly because when it isn't rainy season, people like to swim here. The flow is not nearly as fast so it's not dangerous.

 We walked down a very rudimentary staircase to get down to this tree, and then Matt went down further to take some more pictures, and I honestly felt like there was a chance we would never see him again--the rocks were slippery and I didn't know how far down he was going to go. But he came back a few minutes later and all was well.

 Scott had fun jumping from rock to rock--Matt tried really hard to get him in the air, but he was too quick!

 Red dirt road.

 Scott spotted a rainbow in the sky on the way home. So pretty!

 Matt likes taking pictures of lone trees.

 The distant mountains.

 The other side of the rainbow.

When we got back in to town, Matt wanted to take a few pictures of "the golden temple." It's called That Luang on all of the signs. We thought it was a Buddhist temple, but when we got up to it, it said it was a museum. So, that's interesting. It looks cool at night, so Matt wanted to get some pictures while we were out with the camera.

 Not a lot of light, so it's a funny exposure, but I think they're cute anyway :)

 There was also a monument in front of the museum, and some cool gates in front. I wish I could tell you more, but we just stopped on a whim without doing any research and they weren't open, so... I got nothin'.

In short, it was a fun Sunday.