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Published: April 16th 2012
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Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage City, the first we have been to on any of our travels yet. As quiet as we thought Vientiane is, Luang Prabang is silent, sleepy, quaint, pretty and the list could go on. In fact after 8 days in Vang Vieng the 12 hour journey, 160km windy mountainous road between them could have been thousands of miles they are so different. The town has been preserved as it was years ago and it is alluring. The buildings here are more often than not wooden or have shuttered frontage. The streets are small paved pathways, immaculately kept with planted borders. The streets are so quiet – no trucks/lorries are allowed into the city, the motorbikes are even quiet but a lot of people cycle. I mentioned to John a few times that I didn’t feel like I was in Asia – nearly like being in France or some other quaint European town. (The French did have settlements here years ago I believe, so maybe that’s where the design came from).
Along with this astonishing atmosphere which is very different to most of what we have seen in South East Asia so far comes the
hefty price tag. The hotels, restaurants, bakeries here are all quite expensive. Again our thoughts turned to the fact we were expecting Laos to be one of the cheaper countries – economically it is one of the poorest countries in the world – so why are these extorionate prices found here??? I suppose it comes back to our conversation with Ham (our Kayaking guide). The Laos People don’t do holidays, any tourist trade is from those who can afford to reach this heritage city. This is when I question the UNESCO part of the whole thing. Ok, I admit right now, I actually know literally nothing about this organisation or the titles they give out worldwide but I will add it to my ever expanding reading list but I feel that the World Heritage part has also contributed to the overpriced nature of the town. I couldn’t help thinking all the time while I was there – why not reduce the hotel prices but have a way of giving this money, essentially for a bed and bathroom, back to the people in need in Laos? Just a thought…..
The sleepiness and lack of partying atmosphere, if Im honest, was
a welcome change from our mad time in Vang Vieng. It was so relaxing and there was no pressure at any time during our five days but we still managed to do lots!
Each morning we had an unreal breakfast in Jo Ma Bakery before starting the day! Each night one whole street is closed off for a night market. This consists of stall after stall of arts, crafts, antiques. It was wonderful to see the handmade products, paperkraft cards/books, bags, clothes. I managed to pick up a few small presents for some people here but also backpack patches which Ive had my eye on for a while! We also had some really nice food here, one place in particular was a real splurge (The Blue Lagoon). John had a Laos selection dish with 5 types of meat. I had a pasta dish and we were lucky we could walk home. The food was so rich but delicious. Defiitely worth the extra cash!
We decided to take a cycle around the town one day. It was a lovely way to see the town and visit some of the out of the way sights. First we cycled to a
temple which was really interesting because throughout the whole building there were pictures depicting the story of Buddhism. To be honest, similar to UNESCO, we have not totally made ourselves knowledgable about this religion but after visiting here, yip you guessed it, reading list addition! There were also some nice statues and stairs to climb to the top to a tiny worship room. We also visited a monument to a former deceased president and a non used water feature/fountain.
We took a trip up the Mekong River to the Pak Ou caves about 25km from Luang Prabang. The caves are places of worship with lots of Buddha statues. One cave is visible from the river while the other is higher up a mountain with deeper worship areas. It was good to see but after our visit to the Pukam Cave in Vang Vieng, it was hard to be in awe!
After visiting the caves we stopped off at a local whiskey village for half an hour. We saw how the locals distill their whiskey and rice wine (fermenting rice for 2 weeks , boiling it for 2 hours before completion through a dirty rag!). We also had
a look at all the weird and wonderful insect/animal alcohol concoctions available (Im pretty sure John got serious flash backs to centipede whiskey shots in Vang Vieng haha). Walking around the village it was clear that it was set up for a daily flock of tourists but the people were friendly and we met some cute kids. As we were leaving we tested some of the local rice wine and it was yummy so we picked up a wee bottle for later!
In the afternoon, we visited the Kuang Si Waterfall. To be honest I don’t know if any description will do it justice but I can try…. We arrived at the national park and walked along a winding path, passing a bear sanctuary on the way. The bears were pretty cool, all rescued from poachers. After the sanctuary, every few hundred metres were lagoons being topped up by clear sparkly waterfall waters, even at the first small one I was excited. As we moved along the path, bigger and better waterfalls faced us. We had read about this place, saw a postcard or two but when we got there, it was perfect. Like you imagine a waterfall to
be… One path of water falling onto rocks onto more, cascading down the levels to land into a calm pool before floating to the next. Just gorgeous. After visiting the waterfall, I took a quick dip into one of the lagoons further down the path, it was really chilly but just lavish!
The only other thing I haven’t mentioned in the blog so far is about the Laos curfew. Luang Prabang was the place that it really was evident (it is basically non existant in Vang Vieng and I don’t think we were in Vientiane long enough to notice). By law everyone in the country has to be back in their home by 12am!!! So the bars/restaurants all finish strictly at 11.30pm. I don’t know why this is in place and have tried to google it without much information but yes we didn’t stay out past this any night in Luang Prabang. In fact long before then, the streets get quiet. Restaurants are well finished by 10pm, the night market is cleared at about 9,30pm, there is a lull at night. It is actually nice (for 5 days anyway). In Luang Prabang there are a few ways around this
but we weren’t bothered. There is a bowling alley which is exempt and lots of the backpackers hang out there til early morning (as well as locals we have heard). I think there is a “disco” too but it may finish about 1am.
We are now heading back to Vietnam after a fabulous time in tranquil Laos. Hanoi here we come…….
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