Into the mountains to Luang Prabang
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
16
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Luang Prabang,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
We've arrived in Luang Prabang (yesterday, 11th December), via a terrifying 6 hour bus trip through the mountains. Think of those car ads when some posh 4x4 zooms along mountain passes and around steep hairpin bends. Then replace the 4x4 with a little minibus (luggage on roof) and add a load of villages along route with puppies, chickens, cows and children scattered across the road. But keep the zooming bit. We had front seats so got to almost leap through the roof in fright whenever we hurtled through a village (one puppy actually ran between the wheels...thankfully it seemed to still be alive when I turned to check behind us!) Beautiful, amazing scenery... when I drew breath long enough to look at it!
Anyhow, Luang Prabang seems like a really lovely place - and we've found our friends Dave and Ali ok in spite of Hugh's majorly temperamental phone - but we'll update the blog properly in a few days when we've seen more
Main street in Luang Prabang
!PS: If anyone wants to get hold of us urgently, please text, don't leave a voicemail. We seem to be receiving texts but are having trouble sending them or calling anyone.
UPDATE
Ros:
Well updating Luang Prabang has come a bit late. This is largely because we relaxed so completely there we really couldn't be bothered. However, as our blog is also our diary for while we're away and we both have rubbish memories we have now set aside a couple of hours to get everything up to date and catch up on emails etc. (This also answers some of the comments people have been leaving questioning why we are spending so long on our blog - we're going to print it out when we get home and stick it in our photo album - we'll forget too much otherwise!)
Right, where was I? Luang Prabang is a very odd place. Not in a disagreeable way at all, but more because it is so totally different to pretty much any other asian place we've come across. It is peaceful, beautiful, has clearly engaged someone with a grasp of planning permission laws and is full of little boutiques and cafes
Inside Wat Xieng Thong
. Oh, and it gets pretty chilly at night - with mornings being shrouded in cloud that only burns off at about 10.30am. Most of these things are due to the city's status as a World Heritage Site (except the cold, that probably pre-dates the UN...). Although clearly, Luang Prabang would have been beautiful in order to get this status, once it had been designated, money started to pour in along with a contingent of UN type bods who made sure no one knocked down the pretty things in aid of concrete mega-marts. So, under their watchful eye, it didn't feel like (in the old part of town at least) a heck of a lot had changed since colonial times. There were certainly still a lot of French people eating salads in pavement cafes.
Luang Prabang is also pretty touristy, as you'd expect. However, it is saved from the fate of other honeypots by the fact that the locals have very resolutely carried on their lives in the midst of all the boutiques and posh-ness. You peer down alleyways linking main streets to see ramshackle wooden houses with chickens running to and fro, old ladies squatting beside steaming pots over little burners, awful Thai music drifts from open windows and the people are chattering away in Lao (or, quite possibly, Hmong or other languages that aren't English or French). You then turn back to the main street to go and find yourself some tea and cake and wish you'd allocated a bigger shopping budget so you could buy some of the amazing hand-stitched fabrics hanging in every shop window.
And so passed five days really! It also helped that our friends Dave and Ali were in Luang Prabang at the same time as us, so sitting around doing not a lot, bar chatting away, was very easy
Bears at the BearLao sanctuary
. We did manage a couple of excursions - once in a 'jumbo' (a kinda converted pick-up truck tuk-tuk thing, which we thought would manage the hills better than a normal tuk-tuk. Unfortunately the front metal bit of ours rubbed on the wheel so Dave, Hugh and I ended up having to sit on the same side so we could go around corners safely. Ahem.) to the Kuang Si waterfall. Which was lovely. We got there pretty early (by Luang Prabang standards. I think everyone else in this town gets as sleepy as we did as we didn't leave until about 11ish and were about the first people there) so we were able to get some nice people-less photos. There are also pools you can swim in a little way downriver from the falls. Which seems a marvellous idea looking at the lovely clean blue water, and seems a dramatically less of a good plan when you are half way into said water and realise that Luang Prabang is a cold place and the sun has only just come out. Hugh and Dave decided to throw themselves in from the rope swing to get the shock over with. Which worked find for Dave but less well for Hugh who has something akin to an asthma attack in a cold shower, let along being plunged into a mountain pool. Silly Hugh. There is also a bear sanctuary near the waterfall that we'd been looking forward to seeing. When we first planned our trip to asia we'd been hoping to visit Vietnam too, where we know someone who is setting up a bear sanctuary near Hanoi
Kuang Si Waterfalls
. As we realised we wouldn't have time for Vietnam, we were pleased that there was another sanctuary within easier reach. The bears ('Moon Bears') had all been rescued from people who kept them for their bile - usually kept in tiny cages where they can't stand or turn around, with a drain in their side for the bile. We were doubly excited that the website for this particular sanctuary is www.bearlao.com. Which might not mean much to those of you who haven't been to Laos, but is very similar to Beerlao, that is drunk everywhere in the country. We were looking forward to getting a t-shirt, but they don't seem to have caught onto this (pretty darn obvious) money-making ploy and didn't have a bearlao one. Doh. We also went on a nice little river boat trip up to some slightly rubbish caves. But the boat trip was nice, and it stopped us eating cake for a few hours. Oh, and Hugh and I went to the Lao Red Cross sauna - a little income-generator for the charity. Bit wierd. Full of local people. Like *really* full - walk into the very steamy dark sauna and realise that you can't really sit down because as you feel around you find about 10 other people in there with you. Which is quite bizarre when it is so steamy and dark you can't actually see them, but know you are all packed into something the size of a broom cupboard. Panic attack anybody?
Apart from that we pottered and went Watting. There are a fair few Wats in Luang Prabang - it sometimes felt like half the Lao population was a monk, emphasising the lovely quiet atmosphere of the place. And the whole city can easily be walked around. Bliss. Can we go back now?!
Where we stayed:
Namma Vong Guest House - towards the eastern end of the old city, opposite Wat Xieng Thong and on the corner of the road along the Mekong
Rescued tiger at the Bearlao sanctuary
. We paid $15 per night for a fan room with en-suite hot water bathroom. Nice place, friendly people and a really quiet area. Apart from the perpetually angry budgie one of the neighbours appeared to own.Eating and drinking:
We ate lunch quite a lot of times in JoMa Bakery. Which was quite indulgent of us but satisfied our cravings for normal home food at lunch times (curry or fried veggies for dinner every day seems fine. Curry or fried veggies for lunch and for dinner gets a bit much) . They do lovely quiches, salads, soups, cakes and biscuits and the building is a lovely cool place that reminds me of an old school (or something official in colonial times) with comfy bucket-armchairs. We also ate dinner twice at Khmu Restaurant off the main road, which had a good menu, nice paper lanterns and atmosphere but truly terrible music (which got to almost funny after a beer or two). We seemed to be on a perpetual hunt for cheap beer, as Luang Prabang is a pretty pricey place really (more tourists who don't realise when they are being overcharged, rather than backpackers). Places down by the Mekong seemed the best and also had fine food ('aubergine with in floured' was a favourite ;) ).
Shopping:
Practically every night we wandered around the Hmong market stalls, where they sold mainly fabrics that the area is famous for. Although the fabrics that we liked the most were silly expensive, having taken someone months to make with itty-bitty stitches, we did buy ourselves a duvet set of a more simple design. Which will be fun to get home. The town's boutiques were a little out of our price range, but nice to look at.
