Laos-Luang Prabang

---

Luang Prabang

08/01/11 - 12/01/11

The six hour journey by minibus (100000kip per person) arrived at an out of town bus station. We then took a shared jumbo tuk tuk thing to the centre of town for 10000each (heavily negotiated down from 20000kip each). 

We were recommended the 'Sengphet Guesthouse' on Th Hoxieng. You will be proud as this place was the cheapest yet at $12.50 per night! The room was small but clean and the bed was extremely hard but included a bathroom / wetroom, free tea and bananas. The shower was the hottest most powerful we have experienced for a while so it was great apart from the poor drainage!!

Luang Prabang seems to suffer with a terrible sewage system as evidenced by the intermittent smells and our guesthouse was no exception (just don't put the extractor fan on)! This was the case all over Laos but seemed to be worse here.

But that's not to put you off as LP is a very beautiful place. It is located on a peninsula where the Mekong river splits in two to form the Nam Khan river. There is evidence of previous French colonisation in the buildings and streets, there are lovely little side-streets to wonder down and the waterfront is lined with small restaurants.

The Royal Palace is worth a visit and includes a visit to the museum. The museum teaches much about Laos history - much of which is relatively recent compared to other countries. This is (put very simply) because the country has been divided up between the neighbouring countries so many times and in many different ways it has only recently become independent. Laos is now a communist country which meant the end of the monarchy after it's 3rd king. 

A walk up Phu Si - the hill in the centre of LP is also worth it for the views (20000 entry charge). We were lucky to snap a monk meditating at the top!!

Another must - do is to get up at dawn and watch the procession of Monks giving Alms. Each morning at around 6:30 am a procession of monks pass down the main street to recieve food from the people. Each person gives a small amount of food to each monk and in turn this is supposed to give good karma. We had noticed this happening throughout Cambodia but never on this scale.

In LP we recommend eating at The Scandinavian Bakery for breakfast or lunch and the Art Cafe (near the bamboo bridge) for a milkshake or lunch. You can also get good value banana and nutella crepes at street stalls for 10000 each.

Elephant Village

In LP there are lots of tour agencies offering lots of different tours like homestays, hiking and elephant tours. We were drawn to The Elephant Village Mahout Course due to it's advertised conservation credentials, riding elephants bareback and washing them in the river. So we booked for $117 each which included overnight accommodation in an Eco- lodge and added on kayaking back to LP.

I must admit I felt sad when I arrived at the Village. There were only 2 other people on our booked 2 day/1 night tour but the place was teeming with tourists on their 1 day tour. Each waiting for their elephant rides and some complaining about how long they had to wait. Apparently this was a very busy day with unprecedented numbers of tourists. This illustrates that there is no limit to the amount they let into the park and therefore we had to wait until after lunch before we did anything (having left at 9am).

The 12 elephants that work there were obviously needed many times to allow each visitor to have their 1 hour ride. They should only work 4 hours a day apparently but I'm not sure this is true.

After our wait we went on a 1 hr ride on the elephant on a Howrah then learned how to ride and steer on the elephants head/neck area. This was a nice experience and we each got to keep our same elephant (Kom Pon and Kom Mon) throughout our stay. The first day we rode them for about 30 minutes back to the forest where they sleep (did not get to see the area though) and the next day for about an hour including washing them in the river. Washing the elephants was a nice experience but it also meant getting into the cold river at 7am - fun though!!

I suppose the park is the best of two evils really. I think it works the elephants pretty hard but they claim that the elephants would probably otherwise be killed by poachers or farmers, or starve due to the extreme deforestation in the country due to the Lao slash and burn culture. They also claim that If it was not for the park the elephants would still be working in the logging industry (where they were apparently bought from).

I just felt sad even though I enjoyed the experience in the end as elephants should be in the wild, forming herds and mating- not chained up at night and only allowed to be with the same sex.

The kayaking was good fun but a hard 4 hours (especially as Duncan gave up being bothered in the end)!! It was an extra $30 each but worth it. You get to paddle down some quite challenging rapids in very (dangerously some might say) shallow water! Duncan and I managed to capsize during a not so challenging rapid which was a bit embarrassing! 

Luang Prabang was the last destination in Laos before we crossed the border into Northern Thailand and to Chiang Mai.....

---

Photos

Kayaking the MaeKong river
Lunchtime!