DAY 17. The Waters of Kuang Si

My passport was not where it was supposed to be, and after emptying everything out of my bags I realised it was gone. Lost. What the fuck happened to it? My future plans began to crumble.

    Caligula miraculously saved the day however, when he found my passport buried at the bottom of his bag. How the fuck did it get in there? Never mind…

    We trundled up mountain roads, bouncing up and down in the back of a tuk tuk, curving round hairpin bends and rocking violently over rusty bridges which left our ears ringing from their clamour. We were heading to the waters of Kuang Si. 

    We followed a jungle path lined with food stalls, where entire chickens – somewhat flattened – were being cooked on spits and grills. They looked tasty, but now was not the time for eating. We peered into a bear reserve. Small black bears lumbered across their wooden climbing frames deep in the trees. Caligula and Tiberius were fascinated by them, but I hurried onwards to the waters of Kuang Si.

    The Waters of Kuang Si were bubble-gum blue. Florescent, like they were emitting their own light. You couldn’t make a swimming pool look this good. And yet where did the colour come from? Not the sky, for the jungle canopy blocked out most of the sunlight; it shone through an opening just above the rocks, where the water ran in rivulets from some unknown realm of the jungle.

    Perpendicular to the flow of water, a smashed-up wooden bridge ran part way along the pool from the other side, stopping just short of the bank. Nobody had bothered to rebuild it. If you ask me, it was marvelous decoration, but I’d have really liked to cross it. I could have waded through the water and clambered onto it. But chunks of splintered wood, colonies of dancing water spiders and mosquitos held me back.

    Instead, I entered the water where it looked most appetising. A flight of wooden steps, so slimy they may as well have been oiled down, descended into the bubble-gum mist. I lowered myself in slowly. This was not the hot springs of Pai. Far from it. The water was deadly cold. I staggered precariously forwards, the pool’s bed littered with jagged rocks. I was relieved when my feet began to hit soft sand, sending up huge plumes – explosions in a desert of sand dunes.

    As I waded further into the pool, I realised the water was teeming with tiny fish. They swarmed around my ankles nipping and nibbling at my skin. I frantically kicked at them – what the hell were they doing? They swam away. I took a few more steps and stood still. Quick as lightning they were back, nibbling all over my feet. It began to tickle.

    Apart from a young Laotian girl who was wearing a wet suit, I was the only person in the water. But as other people saw me wading through the florescent pool, they began to brave it themselves. Soon people were jumping in from the higher rocks, wading in the shallows and splashing in the deep. I didn’t think Caligula was going to get in but he did.

Someone moved towards me in the water and I noticed his feet were untouched by the fish. Why were they just going for me? Did I have dead skin? Were my feet rotting? The man’s name was Sooja. He’d been in Malaysia before here, and he was from a town in South India… somewhere not far from Kerala. He warned me not to go to his country during the monsoon. But I’ve heard that all before and I’ll go whenever I can. The more I talked to Sooja, the more the cold crept into me, and the more I let it, the more I began to relax. It felt great to be standing in this natural pool, surrounded by rich vegetation, talking to this random stranger, as the air around us echoed with the sweet sounds of birds and running water. But my conversation with Sooja became a lot less interesting when he started talking about his wife.

    I followed Caligula and we ventured deeper into the water. We came upon a sudden escarpment where the sandy bed disappeared. All of a sudden, we were neck deep. I was worried that with the full submergence of my body the fish would take free reign over my chest like a bunch of piranhas. But they seemed to have vanished, and my legs felt nothing as they treaded the depths. I just hoped there were no bigger fish in these waters… or any other creatures for that matter.

   We swam through the pool, doing our best to stop the chill creeping into our limbs. Gaping black openings stared at me through the curtain of water. Dark caves were hollowed out in the rock. That’s a step too far, I thought, and Caligula agreed. No way were we swimming into the caves. A brief flash of sunlight lit upon the surface of the water nearby, and I saw a fish reflected beneath. An enormous fish. I sincerely hoped it was a trick of the light.

     When I made to leave the pool, I had perhaps let the cold seep too far into my limbs. I waved goodbye to Sooja who was still in the same spot, having his wife take pictures of him from the bank. I crawled my way up the wooden steps as there were no handrails. The steps, as I mentioned before, were slimy as hell. I was almost at the top when my foot slid out from under me, I tried to grasp the upper stair with my hands – but again, the entire thing felt like it was drenched in oil – they slid like fish; my legs shot up and I went crashing backwards down the steps, splashing back into the water, my left foot striking the rocky bed.  

    After crawling out of the waters of Kuang Si like some legless beggar, I limped up the slope, the path revealing yet more and more various pools of water each as bright and gummy blue as the last. It was unfathomable where such a colour was coming from. When I reached the top of the path however, and crossed a wooden bridge, I saw the true scale of Kuang Si.

A myriad of water channels chundered down over grizzly brown rocks. They each had their own passage, their own flow over the stone which was in many ways shaped like flowing water itself.

I hurried over multiple wooden bridges which zigzagged from one bank to the next, bringing me closer to the falls. As I broke through the clusters of selfie-obsessed tourists, I found a pathway of steps carved into the rock leading right up the mountain. The passage was almost completely hidden by the innumerable trees. Water was being funneled down the steps – another separate waterfall of its own. A flooding staircase.

    I longed to race up the flooding staircase and see what was at the top. But I also didn’t fancy inflicting anymore pain upon myself, and the prospect of walking up a rocky staircase with water cascading down it and no handrails seemed like it could end in bloodshed. Besides, time was rushing by almost as fast as the water. We had a train to catch to a town called Vang Vieng.

    I now felt bad for under-appreciating Luang Prabang. The real treasures of the place lay just outside it, and it seemed a shame not to be staying longer. I wish I’d had more time to talk to Sooja – learn more about him and where he’s from; had longer to accustom myself to Kuang Si, swim through the curtain of water and into the caves… But as ever, I had to press onwards.

    Hours later I was doing more limping through the train station of Luang Prabang with Tiberius and Caligula. The station felt like more of an airport than anything else. It certainly operated like one. Security was almost just as strict, and Tiberius was fuming when his deodorant got confiscated.

    We arrived at Vang Vieng within the hour. I thought Luang Prabang felt isolated and small, but Vang Vieng feels like nothing more than an isolated village. I could be wrong of course, but the place feels so humble and remote. Perhaps it’s just the surrounding mountains. I couldn’t see them, but I could sense them, cloaked in shadow and surrounding the town on all sides, dwarfing it.

    We booked into our hostel which leaves an awful lot to be desired… then hurried to the nearest restaurant where Tiberius gloomily picked a forest of coriander out of his rice, and then realised that all he’d been given was rice and coriander, and so now he was left with nothing but rice. Caligula got a glass of wine that tasted suspiciously like Ribena and I enjoyed not drinking anything at all. Plenty of time for that tomorrow… we’re going to be hitting the Mekong river… though this time there are no boats involved… I hope my toe’s not broken.