Dawn ritual in Luang Prabang and river boat to Pak Ou caves

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Pak Ou and Luang Prabang

Rami, Donna, Lisa and I rose before six and walked up to Sisavangvong to watch a ritual that has probably been going on for 700 years. As dawn breaks, several hundred monks emerge from Wat Sene and other monasteries along the northern end of the street. In their orange robes, they gather against the grey walls of the wats before starting a procession towards the city centre. Every monk carries a baat, a black alms container in a basket, and along the way kneeling alms-givers place food into each baat. A ball of sticky rice here, a piece of fruit there, a biscuit, or perhaps a sweet. It is a moving ceremony, serene and harmonious, and conducted in total silence - apart from, if you listen really carefully, the soft padding of bare feet on the paving stones.

After breakfast at our favourite spot on the Apsara terrace we drove to a beach on the Mekong behind the Royal Palace to board a covered longtail for the 25 km upriver trip to Pak Ou caves. Lisa and I were reminded of our Irrawaddy River journey in Burma as we sat and watched life go by on the banks of the mighty Mekong . By the time it reaches Luang Prabang, the Mekong has completed about two-thirds of its 4,500 km journey from its source 5,200 m up in Tibet to its delta south of Saigon, and has already passed through China, Burma and Thailand. It still has most of Laos to cover, as well as Cambodia and Vietnam. In March the river was still low but by May/June, when the rains come, we could see from the shoreline that it rises perhaps another 10 meters. Twenty kilometers upriver we stopped at Xang Hai, a village that specializes in brewing lau-lao, a distillation of fermented glutinous rice. It has become rather touristy and now mainly sells the same array of handicrafts that we'd seen the night before at the market. But it remains a hassle-free place and the inhabitants are laid-back and friendly.

Pak Ou consists of two sacred caves in a limestone cliff on the west bank of the Mekong, opposite the mouth of the Nam Ou tributary. Purportedly discovered in the 16th century by King Setthathirat, the caves were probably associated with animistic practices long before the advent of Buddhism. Today they contain several thousand Buddha images some of which are said to be more than 300 years old. The higher cave, a sweltering hundred steps up the steep cliff, is pitch dark and the ranks of gold and wooden images are hard to see without a torch or candles. The caves were at one time inhabited by monks and they remain one of the main gathering points at the Pimay festival in April. Across the river from here, in Ban Pak Ou, Diethelm Travel has a private verandah in a pretty garden rented from the villagers. We relaxed here over a delicious home-cooked lunch prepared by a lady who had come upriver with us on the boat. Tasty fried rice and roast chicken, a delectable variation on the spring roll, fresh juicy vegetables and a mouth-watering fungus soup; with coconut rice and sweet banana balls to finish off. Definitely our best lunch during our stay in Laos!

We walked this off with a wander round the village - affluent, but welcoming and unspoiled - before heading back downriver to Luang Prabang. From our landing spot we drove to Ban Phanom, a village 3 km east of town, where we visited a fairly uninspiring silk production and weaving workshop and an equally undistinguished shop making sa paper from mulberry bark.

Following cocktails at our normal terrace setting, Lisa and I had a massage before leaving for dinner at Samsara, a restaurant ten minutes stroll away on Sisavangvong owned by Ivan's girlfriend, Lamphoune. Here, on a third-floor terrace at the back of the conservation house, we enjoyed an excellent spread of Lao-Thai-European food including barbecued buffalo (like jerky, but thinner and less chewy), banana flower salad, caramelized pork, some wonderfully different sticky rice - complemented by a couple of bottles of well-chilled Chablis. Ivan and Lamphoune joined us for after-dinner drinks. In addition to the restaurant, Lamphoune also has Satri House, a seven-room boutique hotel (with, unusually for Luang Prabang, a swimming pool), and three shops selling fashion and design items. Interestingly, Apsara and Satri House are the only Luang Prabang accommodations featured in Herbert Ypma's newly published Hip Hotels - Orient. After a relaxed and interesting chat, we decided we should let the patient staff close up, and we rolled out of the restaurant onto deserted streets at midnight for the short stroll back to the Apsara.

Howard's Luang Prabang and Pak Ou galleries

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