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Published: February 11th 2009
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Ross:
After the luxury of our second day on the mighty Mekong, we arrived on the sandy banks of Luang Prabang's ferry dock, loaded up our rucksacks and plodded up the slipway towards the town. Again, we were accosted by local young men touting their respective hotels and hostels, all a bit above our price range. We decided to head away from the immediate riverbank area and up into the narrow backstreets of the older town to see what we could find. Fifteen or so guesthouses later (with prices ranges from 100,000 Kip to US$100), we wandered past an anonymous looking wooden house with a couple of Westerners sat under the front porch. They explained that the place was indeed a guesthouse, the cheapest they'd managed to find in Luang Prabang, and was basic but clean with shared bathrooms. At 50,000 Kip it was also the cheapest we'd found so we waited for the proprietor to return and checked in for a couple of nights. Mai Pai Guesthouse is situated on a quiet residential back alley between two of the main temples in old Luang Prabang, Wat Ho Pha Bang and Wat Xieng Thong. It's located within the UNESCO-designated World
Heritage area of the town and as such is conveniently close to the main drag. There was to be no swinging of cats in our small room, and unfortunately our double mattress was made up of one single mattress, with some styrofoam and a couple of pillows shoved down the side for good measure. Nonetheless, it was a perfect base from which to explore the pint-sized city.
Once we'd off-loaded, it was pretty much dark so we wandered through the old town towards the night market in search of food. A couple of people we'd met had raved about the vegetarian buffets and spring rolls served at hawker stalls down a little side alley off the night market, so we decided to sample them for ourselves. Just to take the edge off all those vegetables, I also grabbed a skewer of pork crackling from one of the barbecue stalls opposite.
After dinner we ventured around to a couple of little bars on the other side of the old town for a nightcap, finally turning in a good hour before the midnight curfew. Most of Laos is subject to a midnight curfew, with businesses shutting up at 11.30pm to
allow for everyone to get home, black out the windows and turn down the lights. We're not sure exactly why - probably a legacy of the Secret War and Laos' communist leadership - but it helps keep the boozy backpackers in check and ensures the monks get their beauty sleep.
Awakening to the sounds of the nearby monastery the following morning, we headed out with the laptop in search of some WiFi and a bite to eat. We met a couple of local characters, one of which took a real shining to Polly and spent a good few minutes thrusting his pelvis in her face whilst begging for money in nothing but a loin cloth. The other was Whoopi Goldberg's schizophrenic brother, who appeared to be stalking us for the entirety of our stay in Luang Prabang and also later on, in Vientiane.
After a lengthy and casual brunch we wandered through the old town, marvelling at the French colonial architecture (yeah, marvelling...), the burnt orange-robed monks and the general quaintness of the place. Luang Prabang, the former royal capital of Laos, nestles on a spit of land between the Mekong and the Nam Khan. After a good
A monastery drum
As used by the monks to call everyone to prayer at about 4pm everyday old hike around and after visiting a couple of the more prestigious temples, we followed a narrow track off the end of the main road, Thanon Sakkarin, down past some allotments, to a bamboo bridge over the Nam Khan. The bridge had been built by a local family from a small village on the northern bank of the river. Two of the village elders collected the bridge toll before we crossed. The path on the far side led to a sandy point at the confluence of the Nam Khan and the Mekong, where a small group of people were slowly gathering to watch the sunset over the river. We'd arrived a bit early but managed to kill a bit of time watching wannabe 'Watercolour Challenge' contestants paint their best interpretations of the picturesque landscape and sunset. The spot was fairly idyllic, with slow-boats and long-tails navigating back and forth on the river, kids swimming in the shallows, and fires being lit in the numerous tiny villages on the opposite bank.
After the sun had finally sunk below the horizon, we made our way back to the hostel to change and anti-mozzie, then on to a restaurant for a shameful
cheeseburger and chips, before bed.
Monday morning saw us hiring a couple of mountain bikes and heading to the not-so-nearby Pak Ou caves, about 30km up the Mekong. We stopped off to get some baguettes, fruit and water from the hawkers at the end of the main street. We also called in at the bus station on the way out of Luang Prabang to book some tickets for our onward journey to Sam Neua. After about 20km on the undulating main road, we took a dirt track through a few villages to Pak Ou. There was a brief stand-off on arrival when some cheeky locals tried to charge us for parking our bikes. After pleading ignorance, we wandered on past, and down to the ferry on the Mekong to take us across to the caves. The two caves form a natural warehouse full of thousands of unwanted Buddha statues and images, as well as a couple of Buddhist shrines. They're interesting but not really worth the steep ferry toll and entrance fee. Luckily, we thoroughly enjoyed the bike ride, returning to Luang Prabang at about 5pm for a shower, before wolfing down yet another cheeseburger.
On Tuesday, we
decided to visit a local waterfall by the name of Tat Kuang Si. We toyed with the idea of cycling the 32km route, but with saddle-sore from the previous day we opted for a sawngthaew instead. Prior to leaving Luang Prabang, we bumped into Nikolai, a young Argentinian lad, and his parents, who we'd originally met at our guesthouse in Chiang Mai. They too were interested in visiting the waterfall so we ended up splitting the sawngthaew fare five ways. We've seen a lot of waterfalls throughout our trip but Tat Kuang Si was still fairly impressive. The national park also incorporates a bear sanctuary near the entrance with a few of the furry fellows rescued from poachers. While Polly soaked up the positive ions at the bottom of the main 60m fall, I hiked up the right hand side, waded across the tributary at the top, and back down the other side. We followed this with a bit of swimming, rope-swinging and 'tombstoning' in one of the lower pools before heading back to the sawngthaew for the ride home. I didn't have a cheeseburger for tea that evening...
On 28th January we were booked on the 8.30am bus
to Sam Neua. We were up and out by about 7am, wolfed down a quick breakfast at a nearby cafe and hopped in a tuk-tuk to the bus station.
We enjoyed our stay in Luang Prabang. It is full of international tourists and is quite expensive due to it's UNESCO status, but hasn't been spoilt too much. Most of the guesthouses, restaurants and tour agencies are housed in traditional French-era buildings. There's a good selection of local and international foods on offer. Needless to say, we didn't manage to drag ourselves out of bed for the 6am almsgiving - the local residents line the streets and offer up gifts including rice cakes and dried river weed to the local monk contingent. Lucky monks!
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