Luang Prabang: Living it up along the Mekong

The journey to Luang Prabang was a lot more chilled out than the journey to Vang Vieng. The mountains were stunning, so incredibly green and forested (and long may they stay that way!), and the pit stops along the way rewarded us with some beautiful views. One of the toilet stops even provided us with a direct view out to the mountains – from the cubicle! One side of the cubicle was cleanly excised, leaving an open-air, no-choice obligation to moon the surrounding wildlife. Sorry about that, wildlife! Fortunately the toilets were on the edge of a deep valley, so it was still pretty private (though you were teetering fairly close to a steep drop...).

As the bus rolled into Luang Prabang we were pleased to find that we were being dropped off right near where we wanted to stay – especially as, rather uncharacteristically, we hadn’t booked ahead, so we needed to find somewhere on our shortlist. Unfortunately we weren’t alone in this, and as we all poured out onto the hot tarmac everyone started running off with their bags, as if finding a room was a treasure hunt we’d all inexplicably signed up for. At first we were fairly relaxed about the whole thing, as we didn’t often find places fully booked, but after the first three places we asked at informed us they were full, some of them with fast-moving travellers who’d beaten us to it, we started to panic a little. Bradley consulted the map and sent us down a back alley to run a shortcut (yes, run, with a rucksack!) and try to regain some ground, but as this quickly became impractical (indeed, I was terrible at running with a rucksack!) he soon left me with the luggage on the corner and made a dash for it himself. Ten minutes later he returned with a room booked for the night (having just beaten another group to it) and we trekked back with our stuff. It wasn’t a great room, and we were paying extra because it was really a triple room, so we looked around for somewhere we liked the look of, and booked in for the following three nights at the SengPhet Guesthouse.

It was already fairly late in the day, but we were keen to explore before it got too dark (and of course, we needed to find some food!). One of the highlights of Luang Prabang is the handicrafts market, and this was setting up for the night when we headed out of the side streets where we were staying. It runs right along the main street and has beautiful scarves, clothes, cushions, jewellery, paintings... you name it, if you can make it they had it for sale. It was magical to browse the market and the sellers weren’t too aggressive either (this was no Chatuchak market in Bangkok!). It was almost impossible to choose between everything on display though... once again, as with Chatuchak, it would be great to have a house to furnish. :)

Just round the corner from the handicrafts night market there was another night market, this time selling food of all kinds in a narrow lane. As well as skewers of barbecued meat, we could indulge in a vegetarian buffet – all you can eat for about a pound! This became the place to go for the next few nights (and was the possible cause of the food poisoning disaster on our last night...) but at this point, it was a fantastic option and we merrily munched our way through piles of veggie delicacies until we were full to bursting. 

Before bed, and a night at the first place we’d discovered a room, we did some blogging (those were the days of finishing blog posts!) and got an early night.

The next day we moved to SengPhet Guesthouse, after a later-than-planned start (our room had window shutters that blotted out all the light – oops!). By the time we’d checked in at our lovely new digs, it was lunchtime so we ventured out for something to eat. Of course, there was no night market yet, but we found a row of food stalls nearby that offered bargainous baguettes stuffed with avocado, chicken, bacon... all sorts of different combinations. There were also fresh juices and juice shakes made right in front of you – though as we watched the ice tip in before we could say ‘no ice!’, we realised we may be gambling with our stomachs a little (but not this time; and although something did eventually get us in Luang Prabang, it probably wasn’t the ice...). 

Feeling full and happy in the sun, we went for a walk along the Mekong river bank and around the peninsula, which was lined with trees and gorgeous restaurants (we drooled over some restaurant menus too, but decided that we wanted to budget carefully while there was so much good food available in the markets. We really did come close so many times to both getting food poisoning here and also to talking ourselves into avoiding it – if only we’d treated ourselves on our last night!). Anyhow, at this point we were full of health and energy, so we entered the grounds of Wat Xieng Thong and spent most of the afternoon exploring the temple complex. As well as the main temple building, there was a beautiful chapel in the complex, and all around the site there were incredible mosaics lining the walls. The main building had a 'tree of life' mosaic on the outer wall, and the chapel walls were also lined with similar detailed creations.

We made our way back to the centre of town via a network of quaint stepped alleys – the houses were beautiful French villas darting across the peninsula between the Mekong and the Nam Khan river. We were heading for Phu Si – a 100m high summit in the heart of Luang Prabang, famous for its gorgeous sunsets (plus a tiring, though charming trek to the top past small temples and shrines). Of course, no gorgeous sunset goes uncelebrated here, so the top of Phu Si was heaving with tourists and locals – and a photographer who decided to hog the view for most of the sunset, aggravating everyone who wanted their own photo memento (he grudgingly got out of the way for a few minutes before jumping in for another block of time). He was ranting to anyone who complained that he was a professional photographer on assignment... but somehow that didn't seem to justify why he should get the prime location for snapshots 90% of the time! Perhaps if he'd asked politely we wouldn't have minded so much, but as it was he was just acting arrogant and entitled, and I couldn't feel much sympathy for him as the crowd started to give him a hard time. Eventually he gave up, and we managed to get a few nice photos (using the far fairer process of taking turns!) in cooperation with the rest of the crowd. 

For a sense of the scope of the view from Phu Si, check out this video from before the sun began to set (note the Mekong river and the tributary Nam Khan towards the end):

Once the sun had set, we headed back to the veggie food buffet (Strike 2!) and Skyped Mum and Dad – with the lovely kids and cute cats in residence at SengPhet dashing around us and getting involved as we chatted in the courtyard. Mum and Dad made some new friends on that call too (meow!). We also spent yet another evening in blogging (oh, those virtuous days) aside from a brief excursion as I nipped out to 'buy supplies' (a.k.a. wander around the handicrafts market some more, returning only with skittles and a toffee brownie). 

Luang Prabang is somewhere you could probably explore for days on end, and the next day we filled up on baguettes again (so good!) before a wander past the Royal Palace. We were toying with going in, but decided we'd rather head over to the other aside of the Mekong to explore some of the more remote local temples. The river can be easily crossed with a car ferry that shuttles back and forth with much excitement (it's always busy, even though it seems constantly on the move!. And no, it's not the kind of car ferry that would get you to France and back – it's a metal raft essentially that zips across the river). There are three main temples – Wat Xiang Maen, deep in a limestone cave (there are some eager to please kids wandering around trying to loan you torches to find your way through), Wat Long Khun, which had some pretty washed out looking murals on the walls (including some rather disturbing images of what looks like sharks – Vicki, watch out!) and simple, uncluttered Wat Chomphet, which had some stunning views of the sunset from a different angle to Phu Si (though we couldn't hang around for too long as we needed to get the boat back before dark, so we enjoyed the rest of the sunset from the river – albeit on the jolting car ferry!). 

Believe it or not, we had dinner at the veggie buffet again, and decided to head out for an evening for a change to try out a much-heralded bar called Utopia. It's a very relaxing outdoor bar, with an excellent view of the Nam Khan river, boardgames, a great range of wines and cocktails, plus chilled ambient music – a great place to hang out for a few hours. We weren't much in the mood for drinking that night, but they had amazing fruit shakes, so we tried a few different combinations! On the way to Utopia (which you have to find through a network of complicated roads and lanes) I stumbled across a bookshop I'd been hoping to find, so I managed to trade in my copy of the Hunger Games (thanks again, Pien!) for Sula by Toni Morrison (they were intent on sending me off with 50 Shades of Grey though, no matter how much I protested!). 

 

On our last day in Luang Prabang, we hired bikes from our guesthouse and cycled around town and across the Nam Khan river, exploring the rickety streets, and visiting some of the smaller, more remote temples. Bradley also found time to practice some stunts! :)

We finished up our bike ride with a yummy apple croissant at a bakery cafe by the Mekong river, then returned our bikes and chilled out at the hostel for an hour before sunset. And then we made the error of having a fourth veggie buffet in as many nights – doom! Yes, you guessed it – we both got food poisoning (presumably) that evening, which lasted all of the next day, getting perilously close to affecting our trip on the night bus to Thailand that evening. We were worried that we wouldn't be able to make the journey (which would have been a bit of a drama as our visa was about to run out) but after a day spent lolling around the courtyard of our guesthouse, uncomfortable about moving too far from their bathroom (the owners kindly and politely ignoring us, even though we had already checked out) we started to feel well enough to take a chance on the journey. It also helped that we could relax in the sun, within easy reach of local shops for water, and in fact any fluid that didn't make us want to vomit – plus we had the cute cats trying to purr us back to recovery. All in all, if you have to navigate food poisoning on the day you've checked out of your hostel and you have to leave the country, it was one of the better places to survive it. 

 
So we did make it onto the night bus to Thailand (though at the cost of a day I'd been hoping to spend in one of the many lovely spas in Luang Prabang – boo!), and endured an uncomfortable but incident-free border crossing before making our way to Chiang Mai. Glorious Luang Prabang and lovely Laos, thanks for looking after us so well, and sorry our trip here ended up on a low – but we definitely want to come back and make up for that one day! :)

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