Vientiane really surprised us. We entered Laos with very little expectations and found an amazing place. Even though Vientiane was a great introduction to the Laotians, after a few days we were ready to move on and excited to discover, what some ancient explorers once believed was the fabled Shangri-La, the mountain town of Luang Prabang. After a bunch of beers to calm of nerves and a quick plane ride at 18k feet, which although not eventful was harrowing, considering the very poor safety record of Lao airlines - ML made them change our flight for free to avoid the Chinese made planes many websites and the US government suggest avoiding - we touched down at the small airport in LP.
Luang Prabang is located in Northern Laos at the confluence of the Nam Khan River and the Mekong River with a population around 100,000. The old city is comprised of four gorgeous streets located on a peninsula, and perched atop the cliffs that lead down to the rivers. The location makes for amazing scenery as you awake each morning to see villagers washing, fishing or playing in the river or crossing the rickety bamboo bridges erected during the dry season to cross the rivers.
The city was formerly the capital of the Luang Prabang Kingdom and until 1975, the royal capital and seat of government of the Kingdom of Laos. Therefore, it has hundreds of temples and Wat's littered through the city. We explored them all and were really amazed at the intricate mosaics and captivating architecture.
Our favorite temple was Wat Chom Si, which sits perched atop the largest hill in town, Phou Si, and provides fantastic vista's of the entire city and its environs.
LP is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which in addition to bringing much needed tourists to help the economy, has helped it preserve the quaint village feel with idyllic street scape of French provincial style houses.
With its wealth of Buddhist temples and monasteries, LP has a thriving population of monks. In order to feed themselves, every morning since the 14th century, hundreds of monks draped in their traditional deep orange robes, walk the streets collecting alms (typically sticky rice and fruit) from the local villagers.
The ceremony was meant to be very peaceful, quiet and solemn. The monks prostrating themselves before the community to be fed, depending on their generosity for sustenance. However, like everything pure in this world, it is being heavily exploited as a tourist draw. Poorly dressed tourists with cameras kept getting to close, using flashes, village children kept hassling tourists to get "donations" and the Asian tourists just wouldn't keep quite.
In addition to the natural and historical sites in the city, we took some field trips to visit the fantastic Kuang Si Falls and the Elephant Village. The Falls were beautiful, set amongst the lush jungle with its own Black Bear Rescue center. The water was deep blue and the underneath the water falls there were many small swimming pools that make for a great escape from the sometimes oppressive mid-day heat.
After our Bali elephant safari, we were excited to spend some more time learning and interacting with some pachyderm, so we visited the Luang Prabang Elephant Village and Sanctuary, where we took a mahout (the elephant trainers) class, which taught us how to feed, bath, and steer our elephants - we use the term steer loosely as it's more like, suggest a direction and pray.
It was an awesome day! ML who has ridden horses for the past 20 years thought she would be a natural (no joke, she semi joked about how she would be the best mahout they've ever seen), but it was AB who ended up as the star pupil spending the day coxing his elephant around the village while ML had a tough time just getting on the elephant. The highlight was taking the elephants down to the Mekong river and given them a bath. Apparently, AB's elephant was a hippo in a prior life. It loved the water so much it would dunk it's head and not come up for minutes at a time, repeatedly in the freezing water.
Similar to Vientiane, the food scene in Luang Prabang is awesome, especially the restaurant Tamarind. We spent the entire time drinking Beerlao Dark, French wine and the local rice whiskey, Lao-Lao, and eating the local specialties which included anything with pumpkin (specifically the soup), buffalo sausage, Mekong river fish steamed in banana leaves, dried seaweed with chili sauce,and the national dish of Lao a cold chicken salad with banana flowers and purple sticky rice.
Our favorite spot for both food and shopping was the daily night market food stands where you could get a whole grilled fish stuffed with lemongrass and grilled and a plate of food for $1.50. Then for desert we would get these awesome bite sized coconut pancakes. Once we were full we would peruse the night market stands for fun trinkets and local handicrafts.
Our favorite spot for drinks was an awesome bar called Utopia. Set down a winding pathway through local houses, you come to the edge of the Nam Kha where you sit perched upon a large deck over the river, laying on mats, drinking beer, snacking on local specialties and avoiding the native insects till the sun goes down.
Overall, we loved Luang Prabang and similar to the advice we received before we arrived, we too could have stayed for weeks, "just doing nothing". Hopefully, it will continue to stay a quaint little mountain village with friendly people and great hospitality, but given tourists ability to over-run "undiscovered" places, our bet is against it.
The city was formerly the capital of the Luang Prabang Kingdom and until 1975, the royal capital and seat of government of the Kingdom of Laos. Therefore, it has hundreds of temples and Wat's littered through the city. We explored them all and were really amazed at the intricate mosaics and captivating architecture.
Our favorite temple was Wat Chom Si, which sits perched atop the largest hill in town, Phou Si, and provides fantastic vista's of the entire city and its environs.
LP is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which in addition to bringing much needed tourists to help the economy, has helped it preserve the quaint village feel with idyllic street scape of French provincial style houses.
With its wealth of Buddhist temples and monasteries, LP has a thriving population of monks. In order to feed themselves, every morning since the 14th century, hundreds of monks draped in their traditional deep orange robes, walk the streets collecting alms (typically sticky rice and fruit) from the local villagers.
The ceremony was meant to be very peaceful, quiet and solemn. The monks prostrating themselves before the community to be fed, depending on their generosity for sustenance. However, like everything pure in this world, it is being heavily exploited as a tourist draw. Poorly dressed tourists with cameras kept getting to close, using flashes, village children kept hassling tourists to get "donations" and the Asian tourists just wouldn't keep quite.
In addition to the natural and historical sites in the city, we took some field trips to visit the fantastic Kuang Si Falls and the Elephant Village. The Falls were beautiful, set amongst the lush jungle with its own Black Bear Rescue center. The water was deep blue and the underneath the water falls there were many small swimming pools that make for a great escape from the sometimes oppressive mid-day heat.
After our Bali elephant safari, we were excited to spend some more time learning and interacting with some pachyderm, so we visited the Luang Prabang Elephant Village and Sanctuary, where we took a mahout (the elephant trainers) class, which taught us how to feed, bath, and steer our elephants - we use the term steer loosely as it's more like, suggest a direction and pray.
It was an awesome day! ML who has ridden horses for the past 20 years thought she would be a natural (no joke, she semi joked about how she would be the best mahout they've ever seen), but it was AB who ended up as the star pupil spending the day coxing his elephant around the village while ML had a tough time just getting on the elephant. The highlight was taking the elephants down to the Mekong river and given them a bath. Apparently, AB's elephant was a hippo in a prior life. It loved the water so much it would dunk it's head and not come up for minutes at a time, repeatedly in the freezing water.
Similar to Vientiane, the food scene in Luang Prabang is awesome, especially the restaurant Tamarind. We spent the entire time drinking Beerlao Dark, French wine and the local rice whiskey, Lao-Lao, and eating the local specialties which included anything with pumpkin (specifically the soup), buffalo sausage, Mekong river fish steamed in banana leaves, dried seaweed with chili sauce,and the national dish of Lao a cold chicken salad with banana flowers and purple sticky rice.
Our favorite spot for both food and shopping was the daily night market food stands where you could get a whole grilled fish stuffed with lemongrass and grilled and a plate of food for $1.50. Then for desert we would get these awesome bite sized coconut pancakes. Once we were full we would peruse the night market stands for fun trinkets and local handicrafts.
Our favorite spot for drinks was an awesome bar called Utopia. Set down a winding pathway through local houses, you come to the edge of the Nam Kha where you sit perched upon a large deck over the river, laying on mats, drinking beer, snacking on local specialties and avoiding the native insects till the sun goes down.
Overall, we loved Luang Prabang and similar to the advice we received before we arrived, we too could have stayed for weeks, "just doing nothing". Hopefully, it will continue to stay a quaint little mountain village with friendly people and great hospitality, but given tourists ability to over-run "undiscovered" places, our bet is against it.
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