Luang Prabang

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If I thought that the scenery in between Vientiane and Vang Vieng was impressive, the views from the bus on the way to Luang Prabang were stunning. The bus made the achingly slow (about 100km in 6 hours!) journey up the windy mountain roads and through the clouds past beautiful valleys with tiny wooden huts on the slopes which were at times well over 45 degrees. I have no idea how they farm on that sort of an incline but they manage it.

After checking into a guesthouse I went to check out the town. My first real sight of Luang Prabang was stunning - every evening a night market sets up along one road in front of the royal palace, and it consists of the locals selling handicrafts from blankets on the floor and lit up by standing lamps as a handfull of people wonder around. It's unbelievably relaxed and quiet (you can still hear the birds in the trees) and really beautiful.

On top of that, the stuff they sell is really nice and fantastically cheap (if only i came here nearer the end of my trip). The way the bartering process works typifies the Laos people in that it's extremely relaxed and all done with a smile and a laugh. There's none of the Thai-style hard bargaining and starting at a ridiculously inflated price, they give you a good price and you get them to drop it by a few dollars and everyone has a laugh about it. Afterwards they thank you profusely and dust the money over their remaining goods to give it good luck.

Aside from the handicrafts there is a food section of the market which is where you save all the money you've just spent. For 25p you can eat at a great vegetarian buffet where you can fill a giant bowl as high as you want with rice, noodles, spring rolls and veg, and for another 30p you can get a barbequed chicken breast to stick on top of it. Followed down with a Beer Laos it's heavenly.

Needless to say that we made a few more visits to the night market and could have spent a fortune if I didn't have to carry it all.

The rest of the small town is equally relaxed and is exactly what I expected from a Buddhist country. This is probably partly due to the presence of about 30 Buddhist wats in the city-centre alone, and that only covers about a 1km stretch along the Mekong river. It's really nice and green and there are loads of friendly monks wondering about everywhere. We walked around a fair bit of the town via some impressive wats and the occasional cafe and generally chilled out.

Apart from wondering around the streets uttering profound statements like "it's so nice isn't it" and "isn't it nice", Monique and I made a daytrip to a nearby waterfall. It was one of the more impressive falls I've seen on my trip, with three levels of pools. The climb to the top was pretty slippery and therefore also quite dirty, and we arrived at the top to find that it was nowhere near as impressive as the view from the bottom. However, the highlight of the trip was swimming in the bottom pool after climbing back down. It was icy cold but pretty refreshing and I actually swam under the falls itself which was pretty hard work but worth it for the back massage it gives you.

Sadly we had to leave after only 4 nights (a short stay at my pace) in order to see some more of the North before heading back to Vientiane, but Luang Prabang is definitely one of my favourite places so far.

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