Laos - Monks, Mountains and Maple Syrup.

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Luang Prabang

For the last week we’ve based ourselves in Luang Prabang which is a small town situated in northern Laos at the point where the Nam Khan River joins up with the mighty Mekong River. In addition to the rivers the town is surrounded by rainforest and mountains which altogether makes for an amazing setting!

Luang Prabang was given World Heritage status in 1995 due to the high number of well preserved and still functioning Buddhist temples it has. Every street you walk down seems to have a temple on it with Monks all dressed in their robes going about their business. As part of the World Heritage agreement they’ve banned any large vehicles from entering the centre so compared with the rest of Asia this place is like a sea of calm and tranquility!

As Laos used to be a French colony the influence from that is still very noticeable. There are plenty of French restaurants, little cafes selling pastries and street stalls selling crepes. With seven days here we’ve had plenty of time to test a lot of these out - all in the name of research obviously! For me the crepes with maple syrup were consistently good, although Liz preferred the incredibly large portions of banana cake found at Joma’s café (YOM YOM YOM)

Highlights of our week have been…

Joma’s cafe

This place has it all. A great combination of tasty food, relaxed atmosphere, cheap prices and the ever important air conditioning! We ate here quite often, sometimes for dinner (highly recommend the Taco Salad for ₤2) and other times just for a coffee and bit of cake.

Kayaking down the Nam Khan River

A 25km kayak down the Nam Khan River. Along the way we stopped off at a large cascading waterfall where we swam and generally cooled off from the kayaking! During the second half of the kayak we passed through a few sets of rapids, which whilst only being grade 1 or 2 were still interesting enough for us! We didn’t fall in…hooray!

Mountain Biking

Whilst Liz had a relaxing day in the town I went off for a day of Mountain biking. Whilst my mind knew that Laos was mountainous, this cycle really brought it home to the rest of my body! We cycled about 50km in total along mostly dirt tracks that were never flat and always subject to the scorching heat and humidity. Don’t get me wrong, it was great fun, but one of the hardest rides I’ve ever done! We also had to cross some small rivers which my guide said would normally be shallow enough so that you could just cycle through. Unfortunately, due to some recent heavy rain the small rivers had swelled to raging monsters and we had to wade across waste deep in the muddy water with the bikes lifted above our heads.

Along the way we passed through a number of rural villages where the main income comes from growing rice and also some textile weaving. I don’t think many tourists ventured out that far normally so I was something of a celebrity amongst the locals. The children would often run out to say hello and wave to us as we passed.

Dyen Sabai Restaurant

This restaurant was a real adventure to get to. Situated on the other side of the Nam Khan River we had to take a small wooden boat to get to it. The boat was paddled by a couple of young boys and was a typical Laos river boat design - long, thin, very low in the water and not very stable especially when we’d got in! Going across wasn’t too bad but coming back in the pitch dark was quite interesting…

Luckily after all the effort of getting across the river the restaurant was great and we’d highly recommend it. The menu was mostly traditional Lao food so I had garlic beef with sticky rice and Liz had a vegetable platter which included an eggplant dip and some river seaweed! The setting was also very nice, with the tables being placed out on a large veranda amongst the trees and with a view back across the river to the town.

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