Laos Luang Prabang

The flight from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang in Laos was a pretty hairy affair as we were strapped into a wobbly old prop plane. You can really feel all the turbulence in one of those things. Though seeing Luang Prabang stretching out before us as we came into land made up for the bumpy ride. As soon as we landed we started to understand why Laos has a reputation as most beautiful and relaxing country in S. E. Asia. The tiny little airport is surrounded by palm trees and smiley cab drivers. It looked almost like an island destination in the South Seas.
When we arrived in LP itself we split into two fact-finding units, the girls went off to find accommodation whilst the boys checked out the local beer. (It was great, they suggested it and everything!) Once accomodation had been sorted we took a brief stroll around the town.
Luang Prabang is the most beautiful and relaxing town I have ever seen, it's just wonderful. It was a French colony way back and as a result has an amazing mix of Buddhist & French colonial architecture. The whole place sits on a riverine peninsula surrounded by mountains. Its no wonder it received a World Heritage sight status.
The place is a heady mix of cultures where slick modern restaurants and bars sit perfectly at ease alongside Wats and temples culminating in something that is simoultaneously historic and cosmopolitan. Its easy to see why people get stuck here.



Over the next five days Beth & I took in a few of the sites, (including many temples and the now obligatory waterfall), and took a fair few pictures but mostly we spent our time eating in great cafes during the day, then repeating the experience in the evening with Ethan & Rachael. Tough work travelling innit?



One thing we did experience was a night at the local theatre where the LP rep company put on a traditional display of dancing & music followed a frankly baffling piece of theatre about a princess and some gods. Thank Buddha they gave us a cheat sheet with the plot in English or I would never have worked out what the bleedinä hell was going on. Ethan sat there nodding sagely but later admited to not having had the sheet and therefore being in the dark the whole way through.
The music was interesting but I can't help but think that someone has played a cruel trick on them and given them fourteen different instruments, all of which went 'ting'.
We'd ended up staying the first night in a reasonable, but not great, guesthouse for US$14 so the next morning while Beth was lounging in bed I went off to find us a new place and we ended up in the excellent Sayo guesthouse. Id pulled a sneaky one on Beth & told her that I'd found a slightly more cheery room for a bit less cash when in fact I'd booked us in for two nights to the frankly majestic VIP room. It was huge! There was a big bed, a day bed, fridge (stocked) and telly with our first bathtub of the trip. Beth was over the moon and I earned a few more Brownie points.
After a while though we began to get the feeling that maybe we should see a little more of Laos so begrudgingly we booked a trip out to spend five days in the villages of Nong Khiaw & Muang Ngoi Neua.