Temples Galore

Trip Start Jan 22, 2007
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Tuesday, January 29, 2008

There are plenty of Wats all over town in this World Heritage listed site, but it's probably on the Unesco list because of its French colonial buildings. It's the most touristic site in all of Lao and as soon as we arrived it felt like the tuk tuks were onto us, it's not as aggrssive as Vietnam but still a little annoying, all the more so when you realise that they have a monopoly on the rental of bicycles and motorbikes. Even so it's a beautiful town nestled between the Mekong and the Nam Ou river.

We visited the local museum which used to be the kings palace, on display were some interesting royal gifts from around the world including a piece of the moon from the US. The royals didn't live in any degree of luxury compared to western standards, but out here their home rates 6 stars. Out of all the Wats we chose to visit the eldest Xien Thong which shows typical Lao architecture and a special wall decoration. Glass pieces are combined together in different colours to depict scenes of everyday life, this technique may have originated in the temple or in the palace, it's also present in the theatre. Also on our visiting list, rather bizzarly was a new guest house being opened by an Australian, it's set up on the other side of the river over a bamboo bridge. You look for the monkey on a fence and if you're a women don't go anywhere near it, for some reason it doesn't like them. Best of all though is the night market which serves delicious Lao food at cheap prices, we went 3 nights out of 4 and the other evening we had some frogs. When we didn't eat here the baguette sandwiches were great, the Laos make much better bread than the Vietnamese!
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baroudeuse
baroudeuse on Feb 12, 2008 at 03:54PM

Hello de Paris
S'il y a une chose extraordinaire à faire sur Luang Pragang, c'est de se lever à 4 h du mat pour assister à l'aumône des bonzes !

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