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Asia » Laos » South » Khong Island
February 13th 2015

Saved: March 5th 2020

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TrevandVerity

Luang Prabang - Sunset over the Mekong

From a bar of course

Sabaidee

Wow what a gem of a country, from Luang Prabang in the north down to Si Phan Don in the south we had a ball. We arrived in Luang Prabang on 20 January and continued travelling south spending 2-3 days in most places; Phonsavan, Vang Vieng, Vientiane, Tha Khaek, Pakse and Si Phan Don (4,000 Islands) where we stayed on Don Khong island. We met so many lovely people along the way and gained invaluable insight from their travel experiences of where to visit and places to stay. Best of all were the Loatians who are such happy, fun-loving and gentle people. We were surprised how many spoke pretty good English, which made travelling here very easy. The population is only 6.7 million in a country nearly the size of the UK that means even in the biggest city it never feels crowded.

The scenery around the Mekong, Nam Khan and Song Rivers is amazing and being the dry season we enjoyed fantastic weather from the mid 20s in the north to in the mid 30s in the south. If you're looking to lose a few pounds this is not the place

Luang Prabang - Royal Palace Museum

Beautiful treasures and richly decorated rooms but Trev liked the car collection best

for you as the cuisine is fantastic - the smell BBQs everywhere is just divine, mixed with the aromas of spicy curry soups and a plethora of other dishes being made be they savoury or sweet are hard to resist. Saying that though there are plenty of activities to help you shed the calories again; tubing, rock-climbing, zip-wiring, caving, kayaking, trekking or for those that prefer a gentler workout walking, cycling, yoga, meditation, massage/spas.

Each day was such a treat, waking to a clear blue sky and warm sunshine. Then to spend the day doing one of the outdoor activities on offer, or visit a museum, temple or two or just sit in one of the many Gallic-style cafes, and later watching the sunset over the Mekong or Song Rivers or the towering limestone karst mountains, dine al fresco at a chic restaurant, cafe or street stall under a clear moonlit, starry sky was truly wonderful. The flora and fauna are a feast for the eyes too - emerald-green rice paddies, coconut & sugar palm trees, bougainvillea & frangipani trees covered in vivid coloured flowers not to mention the peacock-green snaking Mekong River. We have

Luang Prabang

The main street

seen so many beautifully patterned butterflies, many varieties of birds, water buffalo are everywhere and every village is full of the usual farmyard animals. Also every household seems to own several dogs/puppies & cats/kittens too.

Here's a quick overview of where we stayed and what we got up to.

LUANG PRABANG - We stayed in a small guest house in the old quarter and were spoilt with wonderful riverside views as it's on a peninsula bounded by the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers, and this is where most of the tourist sights are to be found. A very attractive town boasting some great French restaurants and lovely bakeries (a hangover from its colonial past). We adore SE Asian food but couldn't resist the bakeries where the croissants, breads and cakes are to die for. We had 3 wonderful days here but could easily have stayed a lot longer just enjoying the views at one of the many riverside restaurants/cafes, watching the saffron-clad monks go about their day and wandering around the lovely market that sets up every evening. We visited the Royal Palace Museum (a former Royal Palace built in 1904 with

Luang Prabang - Wat Wisunarat

many treasures and richly decorated rooms to see - Trev's favourite was the car collection though which included two 1960s Lincoln Continentals & a rare wing-edged 1958 Edsel Citation), Phu Si (a 100m tall hill crowned by a 24m gilded stupa, which from a distance at night when it's floodlit appears to float in hazy air), TAEC (Traditional Arts & Ethnology Centre) and a couple of wats (temples).

PHONSAVAN - A dusty old town (latterly known as Xieng Khouang) but with an interesting mix of Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao and Hmong residents - oh and one lovely Scottish guy who runs the best restaurant & bar in town called 'Bamboozle'. We travelled here to see the 'Plain of Jars' which represents a huge area of Xieng Khuang scattered with thousands of limestone jars of undetermined age which are believed to be funerary urns. The jars have been divided into 160 sites. The 3 sites with the biggest concentration of jars have been UXO cleared and opened up to tourists. We also popped into the UXO Information Centre to learn more about the huge unexploded ordnance problem and to make a donation. In excess of 2 million tonnes of

Luang Prabang - Wat Ho Pha Bang

Built to house the little gold Buddha the town is named after

bombs were dropped on Lao, around 30% of which failed to detonate and even today 100s of people are killed and injured each year. Have to admit though that it was quite amusing to see the locals making the most of decommissioned UXO by using it to decorate houses and hotel foyers.

VANG VIENG - We spent 3 fabulous days here and like Luang Prabang could easily have stayed a lot longer. The town is situated on the Song River and is surrounded by stunning limestone karst which is literally honeycombed with tunnels and caverns. We read that it used to have a toxic party scene but this has been banished and is now promoting itself as an outdoor paradise with a raft of nature based activities on offer including tubing, kayaking, rock-climbing and zip-wiring to name a few. We chose the quieter pursuits of walking and cycling around the area enjoying many stunning picturesque spots and also visited several caves with the highlight, for us, being the Blue Lagoon which is reached by a tough 200m climb and you are rewarded with a huge cavern to explore with fabulous stalactites - head torches are a must.

Luang Prabang

Sticky rice cakes drying in the sun and given as alms to the monks

VIENTIANE - The capital, on the banks of the Mekong overlooking Thailand. It has quite a chequered history, an interesting place to have been in the 1960s with the onset of war in Vietnam the city teemed with CIA agents, madcap Ravens (Maverick US Special Ops Pilots) and Russian spies. A much more sedate place these days, we enjoyed 3 pretty relaxed days here staying in a lovely boutique guesthouse in the historic old quarter. We were delighted to discover an evening food market setting up down a small road across from our hotel which we made good use of. The smell of meats being BBQ'd was divine and it was fun to move from stall to stall selecting different items then return to our room to devour them - Lao sausages, sticky rice on sticks & steamed pork buns were a big hit with us. The food was so good that we had to make 2 runs on a couple of evenings - very greedy! We visited the Lao National Museum, Wat Si Saket and the Victory Monument (Patuxai), a replica of the Arc de Triomphe that was built in 1969 to commemorate the Lao who

Luang Prabang

This season's bamboo bridge

died in pre-revolutionary wars. The cement was donated by the USA and was intended for the construction of a new airport - hence expats here refer to it as 'the vertical runway'.

THA KHAEK - The town is located on the banks of the Mekong, a dusty old ex-Indochinese trading post with crumbling French villas and Chinese merchant shopfronts that shows little signs of changing anytime soon. That said it is quite charming and an excellent base to start the 'Loop' a legendary 3-day motorbike adventure to Tham Kong Lo, a fantastical 7.5km subterranean cave complex that is only accessible by boat. We rented a bike from a great German guy called DC who runs 'Mad Monkey Motorbikes' in the town centre and had the time of our lives doing the trip enjoying the stunning scenery around the zigzagging mountain roads through dense jungle, spectrally flooded valleys and gothic karst country. We were having such a great time that we extended the trip by a day and rather than return by the shorter main road route from the cave decided to go back the way we came - a far more scenic route.

PAKSE

Luang Prabang

Made Verity test it out first

- An ex-Indochinese capital, with a lovely setting bound by the Mekong to the south and the Don River to the east and west. It's also a good base to explore the Bolaven Plateau - a beautiful landscape of lush forests, rivers, waterfalls and lavender-hued mountains as well as being Laos' principal coffee growing region. We spotted a great deal (£12 a night) on Booking.com for a suite room at a 3 star hotel just 0.7 miles from the town centre and decided to treat ourselves to a 3 night stay. You should have seen our faces when it turned out the hotel was actually 4 miles out of town in the middle of nowhere and it took nearly 2 hours and several tuk tuk drivers before we actually found the place. The room and hotel were lovely and the staff tried very hard to please and would have dropped us anywhere we wanted to go for free - unfortunately we only found this out on day 3! We ended up having a pretty enjoyable stay though, and spent a day strolling around the town and visiting one of the 20 or so wats and we also enjoyed a very

Luang Prabang

Another view over the Mekong from another bar

full day exploring the Bolaven Plateau visiting 3 waterfalls, 3 villages and a coffee plantation. Due to the location of our hotel we didn't fare very well on the food front and ended up eating crisps and pot noodles for the 3 nights, thank god the room had a kettle!

SI PHAN DON (FOUR THOUSAND ISLANDS) - This is the jewel towards the end of Mekong's 4,350km journey, a captivating archipelago of islets. There are 3 main islands and we stayed on the largest Don Khong (18km long, 8km wide). It's a very sleepy, laid back place and not as developed as the other 2, Don Det and Don Khon. We enjoyed 3 relaxed days of sleepy island life - watching locals navigating around the thousands of little sandbars sprouting with sugar palms and fishing from their longtail boats in the peacock green waters. At night the waters are dotted with their boat lights and you can hear singing cicadas and the movement of water buffalo and cows. We rented a motorbike for a few hours one day and toured the island and also enjoyed a 4 hour return boat trip another day over to Don Khon

Phonsavan - Plain of Jars

to visit the fantastic Li Phi Falls there.

We're finding it extremely difficult to leave but sadly our one month visas are nearly up so we plan to cross into Cambodia tomorrow. No doubt that will steal our hearts too but we will certainly miss the lovely Lao people, the delicious noodle and rice soups, lahp dishes (spicy minced pork, chicken, beef or fish), spicy papaya salads, sticky rice, fabulous Lao iced coffees and of course Beerlao which is drank by 90% of the population!

We hope you've enjoyed reading this and that you add Laos to your list of places to visit - it will steal your heart too.

Lots of love to all

Trev & Verity xxx

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