Luang Prabang

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7/20 - 7/24

In an effort to save time we took a pair of flights to get Alex, Jaime, and I from Hanoi Intl Airport to Luang Prabang, Laos. Jaime and I were most impressed by Alex's spontaneity, deciding to extend his three week vacation into six (ahh, the life of a student). So the three of us set out to explore northern Laos over the course of a week. Our favorite stop was Luang Prabang, a quaint french rooted town, which has experienced a broadening wave of tourism over the past few years, with westerners attracted to the extremely beautiful local scenery and romantic aspects of this river town. The Laotians we encountered were much quieter than the Vietnamese locals we met and it was a nice change of pace from the previous 3 weeks. One of the first things we all noticed was the huge leap in ratio of tourists to locals. While in Vietnam, it seemed like Caucasians were 1 out of every 50 people, in Luang Prabang large western interest in this quiet town made the ratio more closely 1:2.

Speaking of tourists, while sitting down having breakfast at a local bakery in walks a familiar face. Carlos, one of Alex's friends from San Francisco also happened to be touring Laos. Since neither of them knew the other would be in Asia it was a pretty random spotting indeed. Carlos rounded out our group to 4 for the next few days.

We spent most of the time exploring the town. On the first day we took a hike up Mount Phusi to witness one of the most spectacular sunsets per our guidebook. However, word must have gotten around because there were about 50 foreign faces staring into the same direction and it didn't feel quite as unique of an experience as we hoped it would be.

The most impressive natural sight we have seen yet was the waterfalls. We took a tuk tuk ride out to view them and spent the day hiking and swimming in the falls. At this point in our trip we realize that waterfalls are highly under-rated in NYC. Who knew watching water fall a few hundred feet is so captivating.

At night we explored the night market, which spanned close to 1/2 mile along one road, with locals all displaying their home made crafts and clothes. Jaime and Alex picked up their obligatory T-shirts and leather bracelets, and I am still kicking myself for not picking up a hand carved stone chess set (did not want to carry it).

The town itself caters to the travel community quite well, with several restaurants along the Mekong River and the main road in town, offering a wide variety of Laotian and Western food (pizza was on just about every menu). Laos was our first encounter with a dominantly Buddhist society, and we soon explored the many Buddhist monasteries all around town. The city has a healthy concentration of Wat's housing novice and full fledged monks. All the monks wore bright orange robes, and it was just as interesting to see 1 or 2 monks walking on the street with their umbrellas as it was to see clusters of 10+ monks walking about the Wat's. The local Wat's were decorated with Buddhist symbols which were quite fascinating, including dragons and statues of Buddha in his traditional stances (reclining, seated, standing...). There is a rice ceremony every morning at sunrise, where the monks all walk the streets, accepting rice from the local women as food gifts. We did catch a glimpse of the ceremony on our last day as we hurried to catch our crack of dawn bus.

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Photos

Screaming Dragon
...and Andrew

Wat
...can't remember which one but you get the idea