Time to leave Nong Khiaw after two nice days of rest.
Off we go for another long bus ride
We decide to take a minibus that leaves directly from the city and brings us all the way to the city center of Luang Prabang. The difference in price between this option and the local bus is almost nothing, since with the local buses you have to add the tuk-tuk rides to and from the bus stations.
The departure is scheduled for 10 am. But at 10 am, the guy from the travel company tells us that there are big constructions on the road coming in the village, so the minibus is stuck there.
The minivan finally arrives at 10:45 and we think we are finally good to go. But as often here, they oversold the number of bus tickets… Hence the importance of arriving early and jumping inside the bus as soon as the driver opens the door in order to secure a seat. Maider ends up sitting in front between the driver and the passenger seat. But at least she got on, not like one girl that we had to leave behind. The organization here in Laos reminds us a lot of Bolivia, but at least over there no one had to be left behind. In her case she will be stuck another day in Nong Khiaw and hopefully be able to negotiate a discount on her bus ticket. We know that everything is put together in a hurry, but come on guys making sure you don’t sell more seats than you have on a bus should not be this complicated!
So we leave the village an hour late, but then we have to go through the construction again. They are re-building the road and we will wait another full hour before we can go through and finally hit the road towards Luang Prabang.
It is noon and we are finally on our way. It will take us 4 hours to reach Luang Prabang. With the 2 hours delay, that is 6 hours for Maider sitting on the tiny middle seat in the front row. She will remember this ride. We met a very nice couple from New Mexico, with whom we talked most of the way, which made the ride much more bearable.
We arrive in Luang Prabang late afternoon. When we told you that we can loose entire days in transportation in this country we weren’t lying.
Back to the good stuff : drinks with a view
After finding a guesthouse not far from the night market, we head immediately to a bar recommended by our buddy Clement, who was in Luang Prabang just a few days before us. This bar, Utopia, is just by the river.
The bar is really nice and the vibe is super chill with all these big cushions and coffee tables.
We will spend a great time here, recovering from our long bus trip.
Always pleasant night markets
Tonight we go to the night market for dinner. And as the one in Chiang Mai, here we find plenty of local craft and souvenirs. Hard again for Maider not to buy anything.
For diner we grab an excellent sandwich. These sandwiches seem to be sold by everybody on the market. It is funny to see the important French influence in Lunag Prabang still very present.
Let’s talk a little bit about Luang Prabang. While being only the 3rd largest city of the country, it remains the richest, and probably the prettiest. And it is now a World Heritage Site with a very unique architecture. The city stretches from East to West as a peninsula between the Mekong and the Nam Khan river, and thanks to the World Heritage protection, there are no tall modern buildings in sight. Indeed, the World Heritage classification means that everything being built in the city needs to go through a tough process to make sure the construction fits the historic architecture, building material, building techniques, etc of the city. So here we are in this city filled with ancient French colonial houses, small alley ways and temples of course. All this makes for a city full of charm, and we will tell you now, we loved it here !
Cultural and historical visits, discovering the temples
For our first day, we wake up early (yes even in a city this big there are roosters yelling at 4 am) and we go grab a very French breakfast in the bakery Le Banneton. After almost 8 months travelling around the world, we have to say that we start missing French food. And what a delight to find delicious Croissants and Chocolate Croissants on the other side of the world.
After breakfast we go visit the temples. The city being the country’s cultural capital there are around 30 temples. Of course we won’t go and visit them all.
We start with the Wat Xieng Thong.
This temple was built during the 16th century and represents perfectly the traditional Buddhist temple architecture in Laos. Often considered the most elegant temple of the country, we easily understand why.
This temple is splendid with beautiful mosaics and colored glass.
We fell under the spell of this temple. So much so that all the next temples we visited that day didn’t seem spectacular. We might need a pause in temple visiting…
Boycotting Tak Bat
At 8 am the streets of Luang Prabang are empty. And we were all alone to visit Wat Xieng Thong.
All the tourists are certainly having breakfast at their hotel after going to the Tak Bat, which is the monks’ daily alms collection. Something we decided not to do.
Starting around 5:30 am, the streets of the historical center start getting busy for the monks’ alms collection. The monks step out of their monastery one by one, and start processing silently through the streets, meditating as they collect their daily alms from devotees. It is an important spiritual and religious ceremony that now attracts thousands of tourists every morning.
Minivans drop off tons of tourists (just minutes before the monks arrive) and sit on little stools prepared for them, with a little blanket and a basket of goods to give to the monks. Just as if they were going to some circus show. Despite the number of signs in the city asking the tourists to be respectful, remain silent, under no circumstance touch a monk, stay a few steps away and never use their camera’s flash, locals and even other tourists we met told us that many tourists aren’t respectful at all. Some just jump in the middle of the road with their iPad to take pictures of the monks.
There are so many tourists compared to the number of monks, who have to accept everybody’s alms, that at the end of the street the monks have to get rid of a large quantity of rice and other goods because they will not be able to eat all of it in one day. Also the rice given by the tourists is often times the cheapest and lowest quality rice. These are some of the reason why we chose not to go. We didn’t want to indulge in another example of mass tourism going wrong. Also we wanted to be respectful of the monks and the actual devotees coming to give alms. And we thought the best way was simply to stay at our guesthouse. Which also meant being able to sleep in late, it’s a win-win for everyone !
On top of Mount Phousi
So after walking around the deserted town, we climb up to Mount Phousi, usually taken over by tourists at sunset but empty in the morning.
The theory is once again confirmed, as we are all alone climbing to the top.
The top offers a very nice view on the city. Unfortunately when we get there there is a light fog that turns everything a little blurry. But we can still see the Mekong, the city of Luang Prabang and in the background the surrounding mountains.
The way up and down remains really nice.
Morning Market
Once we get down we drop by the morning market, where we run into mainly local people. It changes from the night market. The reason is because here you will find mainly local products like fish, meat, fruits and veggies and almost no souvenirs.
We then leave the historical center to go and visit the Wat Aram, Wat Wisunalat and That Makmo temples.
Wandering around town and running randomly into temples
We are back in the historical center and just decide to get lost in the small alleys where we discover more temples. These all have beautiful gardens that turn the entire place so relaxing.
We end the morning along the Nam Khan river, in a small Lao restaurant for lunch. We try the famous spicy papaya salad and it is delicious, very refreshing.
Relaxing afternoon
We will spend the rest of the day wandering around to old part of the city.
And we indulge in a nice little treat in one of the many coffee shops of the city.
Sunset on the Mekong
Late afternoon we go find a spot on the Mekong to admire another sunset.
Once again we are in for a beautiful and colorful show.
We can see the sun perfectly, and admire all the different colors it takes.
The boats navigating on the Mekong gives the scenery even more charm. It is magical.
French dinner
Because we are in a festive mood we decide to go a little over budget and stop for dinner in a French restaurant. Also the restaurant is called “Chez Matt” so we kind of had to eat there. We will treat ourselves to an amazing cured meats and cheese board and some red wine. After 8 months far from France, and 4 months after leaving Argentina, it feels just great.
That ends an excellent first day in Luang Prabang.
Kuang Si waterfalls
The next day we wake up early to go see the unmissable Kuang Si waterfalls, located 10 miles from the city center. And because this is THE thing to do around Lunag Prabang, it means that it will be super crowded. Our friend Marie, who visited these last year told us to get there as soon as the gates opened, because after 10 am the crowds become unbearable, with tons of minibuses arriving and dropping off hundreds of tourists. We want to avoid that at all costs !
So we arrive at the waterfalls at 8:15 am and are glad to get the place to ourselves.
The pools are turquoise blue. It’s amazing.
We had seen pictures, but we didn’t think it could be as beautiful in real life. But we were wrong and we are there in front of this stunning landscape.
We walk around all these pools, and are stunned by how many there are.
Until we reach the biggest and most impressive waterfall. This one really looks like a movie decor.
The place is amazing and we are all alone to enjoy it. Such a wonderful time.
We decide to hike up to the top of the waterfall because the Canadian family we met in Nong Khiaw and our buddy Clement, told us there were other pools where we could go for a swim.
The way up is steep and we are in the middle of the jungle.
There is a thick fog so it’s hard to see afar but it is still very pretty.
The color of the water up top here isn’t as beautiful.
So we prefer to hike back down to go for a swim before the crowds arrive. It is just 9:30 am and people are starting to show up. So we don’t hesitate a second and dive into our favorite pool. After sweating on the way to the top of the waterfall, it feels great to go for a plunge. The water isn’t even that cold. The people around look at us as if we were crazy people. But they have just arrived, and it is still pretty cold outside, so they aren’t hot enough to want to go for a dive. Good for us ! We are all alone in our pool.
Just as we get out of the pool, half an hour later, the crowd has finally arrived. The Chinese tourists are running around everywhere with their selfie sticks and tripods taking pictures of everything. We are so glad that we had time to see everything and even go for a swim before the crowds arrived. We change back into our dry clothes and walk back down to the parking lot and hit the road towards Luang Prabang a little before 11 am.
After grabbing a quick bite, we walk around Luang Prabang one last time.
Before sitting down at the Utopia bar, that we loved when we arrived here. We spent a few hours here listening to podcasts and reading books accompanied by an ice cold beer.
We sit down for one last sandwich at the night market.
Misfortune in Vientiane
We had a great stay in Luang Prabang, unfortunately it is a little too short, since we need to leave the next day to Vientiane, the capital of the country.
Indeed, we have to apply for our Visas for Cambodia there to avoid having to pay heavy bribes at the border. The Visa can be done in one day under the condition that the application is dropped off before 11 am. As we arrive on Wednesday afternoon, we have to drop-off our applications on Thursday morning so we can get our Visa on Friday and we don’t have to stay in Vientiane over the weekend, because the Cambodia Embassy is of course closed the entire weekend.
Night buses exist between Luang Prabang and Vientiane that would get us in Vientiane early Thursday morning, but given our recent experience with buses we decided not to take the risk and fly into Vientiane on Wednesday afternoon. We are glad we took that decision.
We would have loved to tell you, see you for our next article in Vientiane. But spoiler alert, there will be no article about Vientiane. We spent a full week in Vientiane but haven’t visited anything. Why? Because we were stuck in bed with a high fever and severe headaches, first Maider and then Matt. After getting blood drawn the doctor was able to rule out Dengue Fever, so it’s some sort of bacteria instead. It’s the first time in 8 months that we are this sick, and able to do absolutely nothing aside from drag ourselves outside our hotel to get something to eat. Thankfully we were in a big city and found a great French clinic to get treated.
Our Cambodian Visas are done, so at least our days in Vientiane won’t have been a total loss. But we haven’t seen much from Vientiane. At the time we are writing this article we finally both feel much better and were able to fly to Pakse to start a scooter trip around the Bolovens Plateau. Unfortunately because of the time lost in Vientiane we had to skip the scooter loop around Thakheak. But we are excited to finally feel better and be back on the road. See you soon friends !