Lazing Around in Luang Prabang

The slow boat terminal is a little way out of town so we jumped in a tuk tuk to take us to the town centre.

We had decided to treat ourselves to a bit more fancy accommodation here, and while there were some nice touches like a fruit platter on arrival, towels in the shape of swans and a hot, powerful shower, overall it probably wasn’t worth the extra money we spent compared to other accommodation available.

We met up with our slow boat friends in the centre of town to visit the night market for dinner. This market is on every night and essentially takes over the whole of the central road in the Luang Prabang old town.

After some food from the market stalls and a wander around the other stalls of the night market (something we would end up doing every night!), we headed to Utopia, a popular tourist bar overlooking the other river in Luang Prabang, the Nam Khan. The bar had a chilled vibe and was a nice place to spend an evening.

Wonderful waterfalls

The next morning, we had breakfast at a Canadian bakery before jumping in a tuk tuk with T, Joe, Becky, Mel and Michelle to go to Kuang Si waterfalls. What a stunning place! Definitely worth the £2 entrance fee! Just after the entrance to the falls you can see rescued moon and sun bears. There’s also a load of information about different bears and the challenges they face from humans.

Just round the corner from the bears, you see the first pool. The water is really turquoise, due to the calcium carbonate from the limestone (the same process that happens at Plitvice National Park in Croatia).

As you wander up, the falls just keep on getting prettier until you reach the main falls.

You can climb up to the top of the falls and look out over the surrounding hills. On the way down, the waterfall is starting to reclaim the steps by depositing calcium carbonate out of the water.

To cool off from our warm trek up the falls, we went for a swim in one of the pools. The water was pretty cold, but you warmed up if you swam about.

The old part of Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is really pretty so once we returned from the falls, we wandered round there for a bit before heading back to the night market for dinner with T and Joe. Luang Prabang has a lot of French influence, as Laos was ruled by France from the late 1800s to the Second World War, so we headed to a wine bar for some tasty (admittedly Chilean!) wine.

Weaving with a view

The next day was a lazy day mooching around town and planning our onward journey to Cambodia. We chilled out in a lovely cafe called the Silk Road, which is attached to a weaving centre called Ock Pop Tok, or East meets West. We then met up with Michelle for lunch at Utopia, where we enjoyed the river views.

That afternoon we visited Ock Pop Tok’s workshop about ten minutes out of town. It was amazing to see the women weaving such intricate designs on looms. They also dye the silk there using natural ingredients, although the silk itself is harvested out in the countryside. They run classes there to teach weaving and batik and I’ve never seen such a stunning setting to learn a craft. We had a drink at the cafe overlooking the river before wandering back into town to watch the sunset.

We watched the sunset with T, Joe, Laura and Jamie down by the river as we’d been told that it was really crowded up by the Wat on the top of the hill.

For dinner, we headed across a bamboo bridge to the other side of the Nam Khan river, to a restaurant called Dyen Sabai. Luckily we’d been warned about the portion sizes so instead of having the cook it yourself set menu between two as recommended, we had it between five! The food was tasty and we had a lovely last evening with T, Joe and Michelle before they continued south the next day.

Cooking up a storm

Our final day in Luang Prabang was spent at a cooking class. First we were shown round a huge market, looking at all the vegetables, meat and rice on sale. We got to try some tasty snacks, including dried bamboo and mushroom crisps and cake flour coconut, which essentially tasted like ricicles!

The cooking class was held at a lakeside school about 20 minutes outside Luang Prabang. We made four dishes, tomato or aubergine Jeow (dipping sauce), Mok Pa (tilapia fish steamed in a banana leaf), chicken stuffed in lemongrass and Laap (minced buffalo salad), followed by red sticky rice.

Unfortunately this wasn’t as good a cooking class as the one we did in Thailand. Firstly, we made all the dishes first, before sitting down to eat them, which meant less time to socialise with the other people on the course. Secondly, there seemed to be less actual cooking as most things were steamed or raw, or were cooked over charcoal fires which didn’t take that long. Finally, as someone who isn’t really keen on coriander or mint, I didn’t particularly like some of the dishes we made! That said, the chef was very friendly and it was good to try some traditional Laos cuisine.

We got back to town about 3pm so decided to visit the Heritage Centre (where I had the best hot chocolate ever, like hot Danette!), the Royal Palace and climb Mount Phousi to the Wat at the top. There were some nice views from the top of the hill but otherwise not much up there to see.

That evening we decided to go to Big Brother Mouse. Here, Lao students come to meet tourists and practice their English. It was an amazing place, and we spent an hour and a half talking to various people. I spoke to one 16 year old student and another 10 year old, who was super talented, had been bumped up two grades at school and already spoke pretty good English, as well as Lao, Thai and French!

We went for a light dinner, which was quite disappointing as the waitress got our order wrong but didn’t do anything to correct it, before wandering back through the night market and home to book our accommodation in Cambodia for the following day.

Laos’ secret past

Our final morning in Luang Prabang, and Laos, was spent at the UXO information centre. This was definitely worth a visit. During the Vietnam War, the Ho Chi Minh trail ran up most of the east side of Laos, enabling the Northern Vietnamese to move between the North and South. While we learn about the Vietnam War at school, what we don’t learn is that 270 million US bombs were dropped on Laos over a nine year period (known as the Secret War in Laos), making Laos the most bombed country per capital in the world. This is more than were dropped during the whole of the Second World War. 80 million (30%) of these bombs didn’t detonate and still litter the Laos countryside. Even today, almost one person a day is injured by one of these bombs exploding. This has a massive impact on the lives of the Laos people and is the main reason why the country remains so poor.

The UXO Lao Organisation is trying to rid the country of these bombs, although they estimate it will take a hundred years to do so. There were some harrowing videos being shown and some really interesting displays.

Although our time in Laos was pretty short, it was nice to be back in a more suitable climate (not humid and about 27 degrees during the day) and to have a group of people around to do activities and have dinner with. Luang Prabang itself is a nice town, with some lovely buildings in the old part and a relaxed vibe and we enjoyed our time here. Next stop, Cambodia!