Luang Prabang

Laos. The often forgotten country that is snuggled into the rolling hills of Indochina.

The difference from Thailand, or any of its neighbors, was immidietly apparent. Gone was the smog and chaos of Thailand. In was instead conservative serenity. Luang Prabang was an ancient capital in the region, and a powerful centre for Buddhism.

We spent our first day exploring the old town, nestled at the junction of the Mekong and Khan rivers. A small peninsula juts out between the meandering rivers. It was sweltering with heat. Turns out Laos isn’t as high up in the mountains as we thought. The elevation is only 305m (And the Mekong has over 2800km to go to the ocean!)

The old town consists of a lot of Wats, which we checked out, and a lot of viewpoints from the rivers. There’s even a beach along the Mekong where you can swim! We saw some local kids and a tourist family enjoying the reprieve from the heat.

Our favorite spot was Joma, a Canadian bakery. We didn’t realize it initially though. A good oatmeal raisin cookie is a really good cookie. It was a really nice taste of home.

For dinner, our hostel hosted a family dinner. Our hostel was quite lovely for the whole stay. They really emphasized the home atmosphere, and hosted these family dinners every couple of days. We were really happy with our stay here. They even made us breakfast every morning! We spent the evening talking to a Brazilian couple from Rio, telling them about or experiences in their city.

The next day was spent at Kuang Si Waterfall, which was its own adventure for another blog. Bears and a beautiful set of falls though.

We spent the afternoon siesta-ing, as has become the routine in Southeast Asia. It just gets way too hot.

For dinner, we went to a Mekong riverside restaurant to watch the sunset. The sunsets in Laos are spectacular. There’s still a bit of haze and smog in the air. We think its a combination of a generally high humidity, and the start of burn season. This is where the farmers take all of their dead branches and crops and burn them for nutrients for next years yield. The result is is a burnt orange and subtle red in the sky every night.

After dinner we went to a storytelling night. Storytelling is a common form of entertainment in Laos. This evening, we were regaled with tales about Luang Prabang for an hour. It was accompanied by a Khean, a Laotian bamboo reed instrument. It’s sound was similar to bagpipes, but much less aggressive.

The stories were fun. There was one about a queen who wanted mushrooms from Sri Lanka, but she couldn’t remember the name (She knew the name. They were monkey mushrooms but since the servant was a monkey, she didn’t want to tell him that). Her servant, frustrated with repeated attempts to find it, ended up bringing the entire mountaintop to Luang Prabang so she could find them herself. The origin story of Phou Si, a hill in the city. Another was a complicated tale of a shapeshifting giant who wormed her way into royalty, displacing a whole other family who lost their eyes, and the sons effort to get his family all together. The whole hour was a lot of fun, and a nice different activity to experience.

We then checked out the night market on the way back. We’re suckers for rt, we’ve learnt this now the hard way. There were some beautiful scrolls and paintings in the market, so we ended up with a couple more to carry around for the rest of the adventure.

Our second full day was spent with a chilled out morning, before heading to the National Museum. The site of this was the old royal palace. It has since been converted to an artifact museum, with lots of gifts from other nations. Indoors too, which made it a lovely way to escape the heat.

The most interesting artifact was a gift form the United States. Some moon rocks from one of the Apollo missions, and a nice letter from Richard Nixon dated to 1973 talking about how the moon landings are a world mission, and this gift is for world peace for all. Coincidentally, in 1973, the United States government was bombing the ever-loving sh*t out of Laos.

From there we took off for a cooking class, which will be its own write up in due time. We made lots of dishes there and had a good time with a family and a bunch of grandma’s. The average age of tourist in Luang Prabang is much older than we expected. We think its due to a common tour package sold to Americans that is centered around Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Luang Prabang and Siem Reap in a ‘taste of Southeast Asia’ type tour.

We had one more morning in the historic city, and we used it well. Woke up at the crack of dawn to head up Phou Si to see the sunrise. The morning is very important for the monks in Luang Prabang. Each morning they emerge from their Wats to go around town and ask for donations of sticky rice, known as Alms. We were out and about at this time, but did not see any of the alms giving taking place.

Phou Si is a very important religious site in the city. It is also great for the sunrise. We walked up the side, being careful as to not disturb the monks on the hill. Once we got to the top, we enjoyed the view with all of the other tourists. The humidity and smog gain made for some intense colours across the river.

We got back to the hostel, had a quick breakfast, and got on a minivan to head deeper up the river and into the hills for some more adventure. We will see you there!