Luang Prabang Province

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Luang Prabang

We got off the boat at the docking station and walked up into the town. Even though we have the guide book with us which has a map of the area you still not sure where you are going or where the good budget places are so always a bit of a chore as do not want to commit to the first place you have seen in case there are better places for a better price. Some tactics Terry and I have used are I’ll go sit in a cafe with the bags whilst he runs around to find the best place. I thought that was a brilliant idea by me ;o)



Or if we are tired or it is dark then we book one night somewhere that sounds and looks good value and the next morning Terry will get up and run around to see if there is anything better – yes I know what you are thinking, what do I do? Well of course I moan at him if he picks the wrong room after he has been running around for 2 hours in the heat. No I am very grateful he does this, plus I have no sense of direction so if I went looking I would forget where I had left Terry! The sitting in the cafe idea was a lot more useful in India when you could not walk two metres with your backpacks without touts coming up to you asking if you need a room and how their room is best, which of course the hotel then pays them commission, over here you only really get asked if you need a ride from tuk tuk drivers and if you say no then they normally drive on.



We headed into the old quarter first and got a bit of a shock with the $25-$90 rooms they were all quoting. Spoke to a couple who suggested trying the other end of the city where the more budget rooms were. It was getting dark and we were rushing around to see what we could fine. Many of the guesthouses said they were full as Laos National games were currently being held therefore many Laos people had come to stay as well as tourists. Plus with the 15 school children and 100 plus people off the boat we had competition. Eventually we found a basic room, but comfortable for 100,000kip (£9). The next day Terry got up early and had a scout round and found a nicer room for half the cost, sounds great but the catch was it only had a cold shower as it was broken, of course I moaned then as what with the weather being cool in the mornings and the evenings we had to really psyche ourselves up to take a shower but we managed and in the end the 3 nights there was really good fun. The manager was a young Thai lad who spoke broken English and was a guitarist in a band, so hearing him suddenly start to sing and play Nirvana with an American accent was a bit of a shock especially when he sang rude words out loud for all to hear. One of the nights we went and got a couple of beers and sat outside with him and he insisted on me singing along to the tunes whilst he played – soon got over the embarrassment and was singing louder and louder and more out of tune I am sure.



Luang Prabang is one of the most beautiful cities we have stayed in. It’s nestled along the Mekong river and has a very French influence from a time when France used to occupy the country in the 18^th century. As you wonder through the city you see beautiful shuttered French houses and is full of French style cafes. There are orange robed monks walking the streets and fresh bread on every corner where you can have large baguettes made for you on the spot with every kind of filling imaginable for only 10,000kip (80p) yummy, we knew we wanted to chill here a few nights.



Every evening there is a night market selling all kinds of tourist items, they close the main road to allow this to happen. They also had great food stalls where for 10000kip (80p) you received a plate where you could help yourself to as much food from the stall as you could possibly fit on it, yes and it was piling high. Great bargain with a huge selection of rice, noodle, spring roll, vegetable dishes. BBQ meat and fish was extra but you got huge portions of it for only an extra 40p.



Kept seeing people from off the boat around town and met some for a drink one of the nights, was nice to socialise with people we knew a little bit so had a great evening.



Again there are plenty of tours offering hikes, kayaking, trekking, elephant rides but to me they either cram too much into a day or too little and try and pad it out with lunches, walks around a village etc. Plus with the horrible experience at the elephant camp and show I never wanted to visit one again.



Luang Prabang is a Unesco protected world heritage site and to keep the amount of traffic down they have said foreigners cannot hire motorbikes or mopeds, even though some shops do let you. Another explanation is there was just too many accidents involving foreigners but whatever the reason if you are caught by the police you could face a hefty fine. So we decided to hire mountains bikes for 35,000kip each (£3) and loaded with our fresh baguettes we made off into the mountains. There is a 30km loop out of the city which takes in the countryside, villages and waterfalls so thought this sounded good. About an hour in we came to an elephant village. I said to Terry lets go take a look but if I see any Mahouts with hooks or any tourist shows then we will leave. We cycled in and saw 4 elephants straight away. Was a beautiful place set alongside the river with an elephant hospital and lodgings attached. I went and spoke to the owner who said that no weapons are used on the elephants, they are mostly rescued logging elephants where owners had no more use for them and the elephants more definitely do not perform any stunts. I took a look around and we signed up for an hour trek which takes you around the camp, into the river and back around in a loop then you can bathe the elephants for 20min afterwards. We clambered onto the howdah (chair) on top of the elephant and began our trek. The mahout spoke good English and said his father was a mahout and his granddad before him when elephants were put to work. He explained how the elephant followed directions by his feet behind his ears and voice commands. Once in the river he asked if I wanted to sit on the neck, I was so excited and jumped at the chance and we swopped places. At first it felt a bit unstable but I soon had my feet tucked behind his ears and I kept feeling the elephant wrapping his ears around them then flapping them back and forth. I had read on the internet that this is a sign the elephant is happy! I was in awe and loved every second. We stopped on an island in the middle of the river where I swopped places with Terry who also enjoyed it but I soon made him swop back before we got out the river so I could ride on his neck back to the camp. We then rode our own elephants down to the river and scrubbed and bathed them. You could see how happy they were and no stunts were performed, it was one of best days I have had and definite highlight of the trip for me.



We left on a high and continued onto see the waterfalls. We had to pay someone to look after our bikes in a car park but it wasn’t much so for peace of mind was worth it. Then we jumped on a little wooden boat and sailed a few minutes down the river before getting off at the waterfalls. We had to pay 80p return on the boat and 80p to see the waterfalls each. Terry was a bit disappointed with the place as it was more a cascade of pools rather than a huge waterfall that we had imagined but it was still pretty all the same. We hopped back on the boat and continued cycling back to town through lovely little villages where kids ran after us trying to get us to ‘high-5 them’.



After 4 nights we left to head further north and into the mountains to a place called Nong Khiaw, we spent 2 nights there and did a little hike around to see nearby villages. It was very nice place, set along the river and nestled between mountains. The third day we caught a boat up to the next village called Muong Ngoi Neua. There are no roads to the village so you have no choice but to travel 45mins by boat. This place was even quieter especially due to the fact there are no scooters or cars here. We only spent one night but in the day we trekked to see a cave that villagers used to hide in during the Vietnam war. We only went in so far as I got a bit spooked but people told us you could walk for miles through the mazes.



The village itself have old wartime bombs that they have turned into displays or to prop up a fence. I was very sad to hear that during the Vietnam war, USA dropped two million tonnes of bombs onto Laos with around 30% of those bombs failed to detonate.



Laos are still trying to clear the lands now but at the current rate it is estimated it could still take 100 years to declare the whole of Laos safe from unexploded bombs. Hundreds of bombs have gone off over the years in areas that have not been cleared and many children have died as a result too. This is another reason why Laos has such slow development as until land is declared safe which is time consuming and expensive then the land is virtually unusable.



We have now obtained our expensive Vietnam visa $50pp from the embassy at Luang Prabang to enter on the 27^th December, so will be spending Christmas in Laos, I hear it is very soon....

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