It is a busy day when you do a: 3-hour boat trip, climb up to two caves, visit a bear sanctuary, climb a 60 metre waterfall, feed elephants and have dinner on the banks of the Mekong. Now throw in 35 degrees and 81% humidity, and you start to wonder about yourself. One of my friends asks for more pictures of me in the blog, but I tell her she won’t recognise me. In this humidity, my hair looks like I’m wearing a huge domed coconut macaroon!

This will be a day of pictures.

The Pak Ou caves are 30km north of Luang Prabang, towering above the west bank of the Mekong. We reached there by longboat. There is something amazing about the light here, as it refracts through the humidity.

Pak Ou are two caves that have become the spiritual home to 4000 effigies of Buddha. Looking down at the Mekong from the cave entrance will leave a very powerful image in my memory.

Next stop: the Tat Kuang Si waterfalls, this time 30km southeast of Luang Prabang. So this was a boat ride back, then an hour’s road journey through largely, but newly excavated, agricultural land, along a road under construction, to a big and busy car park with silly little electric buggies to get you to the park entrance. But then, there is an immediate transformation. Above you and around you, gigantic trees, plants and leaves come into view, and the ground underneath you goes from asphalt to caked mud, and I’m suddenly in Nirvana. The waterfalls and pools they create are extensive and filled with bathers, yes, but the final 60m drop is off-limits and otherworldly. I’m sure the waterfall normally carries a lot of powerful, surging water, but on a day like today, at the end of the dry season, the water seems to float over the layers of rock. I hope the video shows this (along with a smattering of Chinese if you turn up the volume).

Close to calling it a day, I was pleased when Nom encouraged me to push on to the top of the falls, 535 steps up to platforms on the top of the tree canopy. So worth it. We left everyone behind, and it was magical to be inside the trees.

Near the falls is also a sanctuary for 19 bears saved from trafficking. Located, yes, in pens but enormous in size, really part of the forest itself and with lots of additional enrichment tools. I watched as two squabbled over the use of a hammock, which culminated in them both being stuck inside it at the same time, with legs and fur flaying over the edges. Freedom was only one step up from this!

I can’t say the same for the elephant ‘place’ visited. Had I known it was a place where you could ride on them, I would have rejected the idea, but, feeling that I had already overstepped the mark with Nom earlier in the day about burning down the forest, I ‘put up and shut up’. I was there for 15 minutes, armed with a 3gbp bucket of bananas, mangoes and bamboo sticks, with the intention of going down the line of 8 beautiful elephants to give a bit to each. What actually happened is best shown by the video.

Final pit stop of the day the Tropical Mekong, a restaurant with tables 10 cm of the floor and day beds on a floor of rush matting. The food was great, but it took all my concentration not to just put my head down on that lovely cushion and go to sleep.