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The journey from Vientiane to Vang Vieng, around one third of the way to Luang Prabang, on the bus booked through the Benacam Guesthouse took a little over 3 hours. 20 years ago there was no serviced accommodation here whatsoever, but a combination of its convenient location on the highway connecting Laos' two main cities, its scenic riverside setting and the high praise given to it by travel guide writers led to a backpacker boom. That said, there weren't all that many tourists about when I arrived here - we're definitely in low season now and restaurants with their pillow seats and Western food menus broadcast
Friends episodes to no-one except their staff. I took a cheap room at the Chillao Youth Hostel and looked around for a place to eat that was a bit more lively.
The theme of Vang Vieng being rather quieter than I'd been led to expect continued when I wandered across to the riverside. The so-called "'party island' where the beat never sleeps'' (
Lonely Planet) was, well, sleepy with the sound systems of the island's outdoor dancefloors on at a low volume and powering down not long after midnight. According to an American working at
one of them, the authorities had closed them all in December for making too much noise and they were only just starting to get going again. The next day I met up with some European travellers to participate in the activity Vang Vieng is most renowned for - 'tubing'. Tubing, in principle, involves renting a big inflated rubber ring ('tube'😉, getting a ride in a tuk-tuk 3km north and rafting down the serene river back to Vang Vieng. In practice, it's more like an aquatic bar crawl - the river is lined with makeshift bars, staff of which throw out a rope to passing tubers to grab onto and be towed across. After an hour or 3 here (and scraping my foot on a rock on the way into one of the bars) rafting back to town no longer seems like such a good plan, and like many others I took a tuk-tuk instead.
After a day not doing very much I booked a ticket on the bus to Luang Prabang. The guesthouse I was staying at didn't sell them (or if they did, didn't advertise it very well!) so I booked through a tour agent, making as sure
as I could that they understood where to pick me up and had given me the correct time. I was expecting a tuk-tuk but a transfer bus turned up and beckoned me across. The area is very hilly, and the road winding almost all of the way - its a good job I was prepared with motion sickness pills for this trip and I was glad I took a big bus rather than a minivan - I felt fine (albeit a little weary) on arrival in LP and found a guesthouse on the main street in the old town, Th. Sisavangvong.
Luang Prabang is small and perfectly formed - it's officially a city, but not even comparable in size to Vientiane. The old town is situated on a peninsula formed by two rivers, the Mekong and Nam Khan. It's an exceptionally peaceful and picturesque place. It's a designated UNESCO heritage town that (with one exception that I'll get to shortly) has absorbed increasing numbers of tourists while losing little of its splendour - everything about LP is attractive, the riverside, the elegant buildings, the greenery and the people are among the most pleasant I've met anywhere. Hassle is next
to none, there are just the right number of tuk-tuks about (no motorbike taxis - for some reason they don't seem to exist anywhere in Laos) and the drivers aren't in any way pushy, nor are the market traders.
Exploring the city I found a street lined with small guesthouses that wasn't mentioned in my guidebook, where there were much better-value rooms to be had, and I moved to Oudomsouk Guesthouse (review
here - for anyone going to LP and looking for it, the start of the street is adjacent to JoMo cafe which is shown on the Lonely Planet's map). Even so, it took a bit of re-finding and a rather longer than expected tuk-tuk ride with my pack. Still, by 2pm I'd checked in then went off to explore the far end of the peninsula, visiting Wat Xieng Thong and then crossing a bamboo bridge, walking through some overgrown land (right opposite the city - there's so little development on the other side of the river!), following a sign to Ban Xang Khong, a small village where the local people make and sell weaved handicrafts. I saw one other foreigner in the time I was there -
as I said, we're well into low season for tourism in Laos.
The next morning I made an early start in order to see the famous morning alms ceremony, in which orange-robed monks collect rice and other gifts ('alms'😉 from villagers and, increasingly, tourists. I'd spotted a couple of signs around the town advising tourists on how to behave when attending the ceremony, but I guess some of my fellow visitors didn't notice them as they were quite inconsiderate, standing over the monks (you're supposed to kneel to show respect) and putting cameras right in their faces. If you're reading this and heading to Luang Prabang
please don't do this. I witnessed this in May - I dread to think what it's like in peak season. This place and its people deserve better.
After this, I had a look around a local food market that lined some of the backstreets not far from my guesthouse, behind the Royal Palace Museum, enjoying a breakfast of noodle soup as the only foreigner at a market eatery. Later in the day I visited the museum, seeing the 'Phra Bang' a Buddha statue in the palms-out pose after which the town was
given its unusual name. Unfortunately photography, once again, wasn't allowed here except in one relatively uninteresting building.
One evening I got to chatting with a traveller from Holland who was in the room next door to me, and with her two friends (one Dutch and one German) and at my suggestion we headed for a riverside restaurant to enjoy some of the local fish, before walking through LP's famous night market (photo, below) and moving on to the Hive Bar - one of Luang Prabang's few nightspots - for a drink or two. The town has a midnight curfew, and the bar shut its music off at 11pm. There were rumours of a specific place which stays open until 3am (I'm not going to name it here, but anyone who goes out at night in this town will hear of it soon enough), but neither all that inclined to stay out so late nor try to get back to my guesthouse at the other side of town in the middle of the night I declined the invitation and headed back to Oudomsouk.
All in all, I
really enjoyed my time in Luang Prabang - if I hadn't a
pre-booked flight to Chiang Mai I would have spent longer here - and would recommend anyone travelling through the region to make it part of their itinerary.
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Mark Iles
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So, where to next then Ian?
I understand you're coming back to the UK next month - is that right?