Kuang Si Waterfall
Just a short ride away from Luang Prabang is this beautiful waterfall. In the wet season the water tumbles down the staggered cliffs for 60 metres, finally crashing into the clear, azure pools below. Beautiful for picnics, the water spray keeps the area cool and the pools are popular with swimmers.

Tad Se Falls
Quieter, less well-known than Kuang Si, these falls are very pretty, with many small waterfalls and pools for bathing. During the peak of the dry season there is very little water, so these are best seen in the wet season

Plain of Jars
The Plain of Jars covers an extensive plateau in the Xieng Khouang province, with the nearest sites of interest located about 50 miles southeast of Luang Prabang. The jars are made of sandstone or granite and are up to ten feet (two metres) tall and weigh something in the region of 13 metric tons. They are found in groups of between thirty and three hundred jars in seemingly random locations across the plateau. Archaeologists and anthropologists are at a loss to explain their presence. Often discussed, but impossible to verify, is the suggestion that these are funerary urns. The discovery of jewellery and human bones inside a small number of jars and a more recent discovery of underground burial chambers lends weight to this claim. The local peoples, however, do have their stories. The most popular myth is that the jars were used to make or store lao-lao (rice wine) after a victory in battle. Whatever the reason which prompted an ancient tribe to scatter these hills with giant urns, the great Plain of Jars is fascinating.

Ban Xang Hai 

This village is home to a rice wine distillery.

Villagers make a potent but smooth liqueur, widely available in the region, known as lao-lao.

Visitors are welcome to try the various wines and spirits and are encouraged to take away with them a jar of 'snake liqueur' which is, as one might expect, a glass bottle of lao-lao with a snake curled up in the base.

Ban Phanom

Better known as the weaving village, the inhabitants here have been making silk and cotton fabrics for over three centuries.

The full cycle of silk production is on display, from breeding the silkworms right through to weaving the fabric.

A shop sells the finished products of bolts of cloth, items of clothing, mementos, handicrafts and gifts.