Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang, Laos is a very special place. Special, as we anticipated, because the entire place is a UNESCO World Heritage sight, and home to some of the most spectacular, atmospheric, and well-preserved Buddhist temples in the whole of Southeast Asia. Also special, as we would learn, because it is randomly the gathering place for cool travellers from the Americas. For the first time, we were surrounded entirely by new friends from the States, Canada, Mexico, and South America. A little taste of home in the middle of Asia. And a little taste of France, too. God, the food here is incredible.

Our LP odyssey began at the bus station in Luang Nam Tha with Laura, our Irish friend of trekking and leeching fame. The bus ride was about nine hours, remarkably uncrowded, with hair-raising sharp turns on mountain roads, incredible views, and friendly children and villagers in tiny hill towns. It seemed as if we were in a race with every other public Lao bus making the journey. Luckily we are completey immune to terrifying driving experiences- enough time on mountain roads in Asia and Latin America will do that to you. We would have slept well, except at every turn we'd slide off the bus seat, and practically onto the floor- there were no seatbelts (or "bus leashes," as we referred to them... it's been a while since we've seen one, and the terminology got scrambled.)

We arrived in Luang Prabang at night time and set about finding a guesthouse. We settled on a small place, which at $10 per night was actually pretty fancy. Most of our friends were in $2 per night dorm beds. Our place was at the end of a quiet lane practically smack-bang in the center if a small Buddhist monastary. The grounds were incredibly peaceful, and orange-robed young monks could be seen at all hours shuffling across the courtyard and studying English in the afternoons. We spent our first day wandering the alleyways of Luang Prabang and taking in some of the wats. Here is a quick blurb on LP, thanks to our trusty pal, wikipedia:

Luang Prabang, or Louangphrabang, is a city located in north central Laos, on the Mekong River about 425 km north of Vientiane, and the capital of Louangphrabang Province. The current population of the city is about 22,000.
The city was formerly the capital of a kingdom of the same name. Until the communist takeover in 1975, it was the royal capital and seat of government of the Kingdom of Laos. The city is also notable as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

...and some pictures from our temple sight-seeing...


child safety seat

Megan helping young monks with their English

monk studying

paintings inside a wat in Luang Prabang, Laos

English lessons

careful! Dogs in Luang Prabang snap!

wat detail

monks receiving morning alms in front of our guesthouse each morning at 5:00 AM

reclining Buddha

Tree of Life painting

practicing English with the monks

Mekong River

Luang Prabang night market... the best in SE Asia...

tasty 50 cent baguette sandwiches

LP fruit market

fruit smoothies in a bag... an SE Asia classic...

a Lao lady

Luang Prabang, like most cities in Laos, has incredible, affordable Lao and Western food, $4 per hour full-body massages, and enough atmosphere to calm the most frazzled of travelers. We met up with Gabi, again (our friend that we first met in Chiang Mai,) and indulged in some fruit shake therapy and massages after a difficult day of wat-seeing, and great conversation. We miss you, Gabs!! That night a huge slew of us went out for drinks and bowling (for some) at a really flash looking bar, by Lao standards. On the walk home through darkened, silent streets, Catt and I were propositioned for drugs not once, twice, but thrice. Luang Prabang is the most innocent Asian city we've visited, so this was a little strange (and a lot funny.) A motorbike would come zooming from the darkness, and would slow next to us. A faceless driver would say at lowest volume some variation of "maree-wana, maree-wana, maree-wana??"or "you wan somseeng, you wan somseeng, you wan somseeng?" When we kindly declined, he'd zoom away again into the night. He was almost like Batman or something. Apparently, everyone, we look like junkies to the Lao. Guess it is time to launder my wrinkled backpacker rags...

Our third day we made the decision to go on a white-water rafting trip on a river a two hour drive north of Luang Prabang, through beautiful countryside. Before we put in at the start of the rapids we had the chance to play with some of the village children and their turkeys. We all agreed that Lao children are the most beautiful in the world. They are so cute!! The village is on an unsealed road far from any tourist center, so we were a real novelty with our strange, inflated red rafts, helmets and bikinis. Hopefully no one was offended by Catt's bikini. Kidding. Anyway, we ended up using Green Discovery Laos, the same company we used for our trek in Luang Nam Tha for our rafting trip. We highly recommend them if you are headed to Laos to do adventure/outdoorsy activites: www.greendiscoverylaos.com

On the river we met two great American couples- Bobby and Diana from Cali, and Mike Murphy (and later his wonderful wife, Nadia,) from DC. We were so pumped to meet some fellow Washingtonians... our first in three months! Murph and Nadia live in Tenleytown, a quick two metro stops from our haunts back in Dupont. We need to meet up again when we're all home from our respective adventures.

the raft

on the river

rocking the geeky helmet

beautiful northern Laos

That night Bobby and Diana and Mike and Nadia met up with us, Laura and Gabi, again, and we headed out to the only disco club (we think) in Luang Prabang for dancing from 10:00- 11:00 PM (yes, those are the dancing hours. Before that, it's a weird cover band and creative karaoke.) We grabbed a tuk-tuk to the outskirts of town, and set out for what ended up being an incredible night. All these guys we'd met on the river earlier that day turned up, and at one point it felt like we knew every booleh (Westerner) in the place. Which isn't actually saying that much- I think this is usually a strictly locals-only haunt. The decor was fun-house-cum-hotel conference room space- a vast wooden dance floor encircled by high tables and folding chairs, with black-light childish looking cartoons on the curtains, a disco ball, and flashing neon pink lights. At the far end of the dance floor was a DJ box above the floor with the tiniest Lao woman inside (with the loudest voice, ever.) Once the dance hour started, she would interrupt every song at top volume to let out a "YESSS, everyone, sexy, sexy noooow!!!" or something along those lines. She was dancing like crazy with her little headphones on, completely absorbed in the music (and sort of resembling a Charlie Brown Peanuts character with repetitive motions, etc,) and the rest of us were slam-dancing/interpretative dancing like crazy to weird, old remixed-to-techno-rap hits (think Mystikal, or worse, Petey Pablo). It was definitely an experience. Here are some amazing pictures:

en la discoteca

with Laura and Gabi

Catt and Mike Murphy

Megan, Gabi, Nadia

our raft, partying Lao style

After all that fun, six of us hailed down our tuktuk guy (who had just been waiting out in the parking lot the whole time) for our ride back to town. Technically there is a "strictly enforced" midnight curfew for all foreigners in Laos. This is rarely enforced (and when it is, the friendly cops just escort you back to your guesthouse,) but the streets are silent. Half-way through the ride, though (with Gabi hanging off the back of the tuktuk,) the thing almost shot off the road when we heard an ear-popping explosion. We had blown a tire! Luckily another driver took pity on us and we were able to pile into his tuktuk. Pics:

busted tuktuk tire

"this is NOT what we paid for..."

Megan and Diana... what the*#&%#%??

big moneeey

kippionnaires... Bob and Catt

Gabs hanging off the back of the new tuktuk

The next day we bid farewell to Gabi and Laura who were moving on to Vientiane, and prepared for Bobby's birthday dinner. Mike and Nadia organized a dinner for a bunch of us at Tamarind, a very nice Luang Prabang restaurant. The meal was set, and delicious... we had an incredible appetizer of dried and salted buffalo skin with eggplant, a watermelon liquer apperitif, and tender fish, prepared jungle-style for the main. Desert was an array of tropical fruit (star fruit, pommelo, tamarinds, mangosteens, melons, etc.) Happy birthday, Bobby!

Appetizers at Tamarind... buffalo hide with sesame seeds and eggplant puree

Group at Tamarind in Luang Prabang

fish in palm leaves at Tamarind

Catt loves peace

We tucked in early to prepare for our journey to Vang Vieng to celebrate our one year anniversary, and reunion with Moniek and Sven from Borneo the next morning, but were sad to leave Luang Prabang and our new friends, too.
All in all, Luang Prabang was one of our favorite cities in all of Asia (and I can say that now, because even though we're terribly behind on our travel blog, we're writing this from Australia and our Asia chapter is in "real time," finished.)

Perhaps the most wonderful aspect of our days in Luang Prabang was the community we shared with all of the friends we met there... it seemed as though every day we had a coffee, dinner, or late night date with a different group of people. The vibe there really epitomizes all that we love about travelling in general- the willingness to be open-hearted with strangers, trust your gut, and let go of preconceived notions or anxiety when meeting new people. Relationships made "on the trail," I am convinced, mature at about 10 times the rate of those made at home because you're already work from such a common baseline of understanding and values. It's a beautiful thing. Another wonderful thing about Luang Prabang was the relaxed atmosphere. There was never the pressure and hustle that characterizes so many Asian cities. Things were slow-paced. The night market was so peaceful that you could hear the crickets chirping, and many sellers worked by dim light, or even candlelight. The food was exquisite, too. We definitely recommend it for all!