Luang PraBANG

There are only so many times we can write "charming French colonial..." in this blog, but if any place deserves that moniker it's Luang Prabang, the picturesque, elegant city that sits between Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. Most tourist activity takes place in the old town - a peninsula carved out by the two rivers - whose old-style French colonial architecture lends a kind of magic to the area. The (facades of) guesthouses are made to look like cozy inns, cafe/bakeries all feel like hidden gem finds, antique and souvenir shops feel like quaint boutiques, and the overpriced tourist restaurants... well, they still feel like overpriced tourist restaurants, but at least they look a bit more inviting. Additionally, although the architecture is certainly accentuated in the tourist district, the fact that the rest of the city maintains a similar building style lends credibility to the old town. It feels like a part of the city brought to life rather than an out of place Epcot-Center-like exhibition in the middle of a Laotian city.

We spent a almost 6 days in Luang Prabangm, broken up by a visit to Luang Nam Tha in the middle (which we'll discuss in a different post). However, we're going to take some poetic license and break with the chronology of our trip by discussing the city in one post.

Day 1: We arrived on the night bus from Vang Vieng and spent the day walking around the city, booking a cooking class, and shopping/eating in the night market.

A Typical Building On the Peninsula

A Local Walking Through the Streets

Night Market Stall

Day 2: We attended the aforementioned cooking class, where we were shown how to prepare 7 different Lao-cuisine dishes. The class included the standard visit through the local market and then we made a salad and a stir-fry dish for lunch. After cooking and eating our lunch, we went back into the kitchen to see 5 more dishes demonstrated and then we picked 3 to cook for ourselves. The cooking class was informative, but we found that the teachers were lacking in the charisma and enthusiasm that make the class truly exciting. However, what our instructors lacked in personality, they more than made up for with an abundance of food. We left the cooking class feeling over-stuffed and drowsy, but nonetheless, we decided it would be a good time to climb up to Wat Phousy, the hilltop temple in the center of the old town to watch the sun set.

Baby Chickens At the Market

Stir Fried Mushrooms and a Zucchini-Like Vegetable

Hard At Work and The Final Product

Luang Prabang From Atop Phousy

Catching the Sunset

Day 3: We got up early in the morning - around 5 AM - to go buy sticky rice and watch/participate in the early-morning Buddhist monk alms ceremony. The ceremony consists of clusters of monks, one from each temple in the city, forming a procession through the streets while locals and tourists alike crouch on the sidewalk and offer food alms. We're sure that this was once an authentic and touching tradition, but it has since turned into a full-fledged tourist spectacle. Nonetheless, it was an interesting experience to watch and document. Later, after grabbing a few more precious hours of sleep, we followed the advice of a traveller we met at the cooking class and booked a full-day tour with a German-owned elephant conservation project called, surprisingly enough, Elephant Village. The village is a refuge of sorts for former logging elephants to live out the rest of their lives in relative comfort and ease. Rather than toil in the dangerous environs of the logging industry, the bought (rescued) elephants "work" unchained for two hours a day leading tourists around the compound. Our day included an introduction to elephant riding (different from sitting in a chair atop an elephant), then a one-hour walk with our elephants where we took turns with the mahout (elephant trainer) riding on the elephant's neck and back, lunch, and finally a ride down to the river to bathe the elephants before they made their way back to where they sleep. Riding an elephant's neck is an interesting experience because you are straddling a large, swivelling, mass of muscle. Even though the elephants walk in a relatively straight line, their heads are always craning about looking for food - and riding on the neck means that you are moving everywhere right along with them. Although it took us a bit of time to get comfortable (well mostly for Avi), we thoroughly enjoyed riding the elephants down to the river and helping bathe them, and by bathing we mean getting splashed by them, getting dunked by them, and using their bodies as diving platforms into the river (we were assured that they are not bothered by us standing on them). Upon returning to town, we took the night bus up to Luang Nam Tha.

The Procession of Monks

Rach Fulfilling Her Alms-Giving Duty

A Young Monk On the Go

Good Elephant Bonding Time

Elephant Riding

Avi's Surprise At Being Dunked By His Elephant

Rach About To Get Splashed

Balancing On Top

An Elephant and His Mahout

Day 4: We were so exhausted from our trek and night bus ride from Luang Nam Tha (again, we'll get to that), that we took the day easy, sleeping in the morning and strolling around in the afternoon and evening.

Day 5: We hired a shared pickup to drive out to the Kuang Si falls about 30 KMs outside of town. The weather gods conspired to give us a hot, dry, sunny day in the middle of the rainy season and the falls themselves were as awesome as the weather. Inside the Kuang Si park are tiers of waterfalls and swimming pools that allow for diving, swimming, and rope swinging in the refreshingly chilly water that is a turquoise color normally reserved for the Carribean Sea. We followed that up with a date night at a traditional Lao-cuisine restaurant owned by a former royal chef. We both fully enjoyed our appetizer course of papaya salad seasoned with fresh herbs and toasted peanuts, and we "appreciated" the authenticity of our main courses - Fish Laap (minced fish with spices and herbs) for Avi and steamed mushroom salad for Rach.

A Kuang Si Swimming Pool

Avi Climbing Up To the Rope Swing

Relaxing By the Water

Another Shot of the Beautiful Falls

Rach Atop a Waterfall

Avi In the Water

Rach Amidst the Falls

One Last Pic of the Cascading Water

The Delicious Green Papaya Salad At Te Te Chung Restaurant

A Snack Plate of Toasted Peanuts, Lemongrass, and Salt

Day 6: We rented bikes and rode around the city visiting temples and the royal palace (more of a royal mansion) and also just driving around the local parts of town - including the Phousy market and what we're calling the affluent suburbs up the hill. It was a good day of touring and it was also nice to get away from the old town and see some more parts of the city.