Sunset over the Mekong
Summer holidays means travelling to Europe to take advantage of the extended break, right? Not this time! We’d started planning an Eastern Europe trip, but I threw in the towel and decided that closer to home would be better, and it wouldn’t be nearly as cold as further north.
Laos was the fourth country in the Indochina circle for me to visit – I’d been to Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam before, so I was expecting something similar. Laos is similar to its neighbours, yes, but it’s also got a charm all of its own.
We landed in Luang Prabang after transiting through Singapore, and briefly, Vientiane, after taking the 6.40am flight from Perth. I think it’s much better than the 1am one, since you do get a couple of hours of sleep before you need to head to the airport, depending on your “must get up soon” pre-flight reflex.
Skyline from the airport
The first thing I noticed about Laos was its hilly nature. These aren’t regular, smooth peaks, but ragged, jagged points that look like they’ve had bites taken out of them. In complete contrast to this intimidating landscape, the people are friendly and welcoming, and Luang Prabang must be one of the most relaxed cities I’ve been to.
Streetscape in Luang Prabang
We stayed at The Apsara, a boutique hotel in the peninsula between the Mekong and the Nam Khan. This is part of the old town where French colonial architecture is the norm, with gorgeous shuttered two-storey buildings abound, interspersed with Vats (temples). The Apsara is one of the colonial-style buildings, and the rooms are very comfortable.
Night Markets
The Old Town is very walkable — on our first night we wandered through the night market and back along the Nam Khan to the hotel. The night market is pretty usual: seven different shops repeated twenty times. The exception is the food — there’s a food alley close to the end of the markets where you can get bbq and snacks hot off the grill. The fruit smoothie places are also numerous, but they make a mean drink!
After walking back to the hotel, we ended up having dinner at The Bamboo Tree, a small restaurant right next door which also offers cooking classes. One of the appetisers here is Mekong river weed dried into sheets and served with lemongrass and peanuts — it’s kind of like Japanese seaweed sheets, but not as salty. The lemongrass lime soda drink is divine… and I had my first mango sticky rice for the trip! Delicious, and the staff were lovely. We ended up chatting with a French couple who had been eating nearby, and when we were the last few people in the restaurant, the waitstaff brought out the Lao “whisky”!
Our first full day involved another wander around town, stopping off at Vat Xieng Thong to see the temples, and then walking along the Mekong. We started as we meant to go on by having a massage that afternoon, which was incredibly cheap by Australian standards, but instead of relaxing mood music we were treated to the sounds of the next building’s renovation noise.
Tamarind’s lily pond
Day Two was a cooking class with Tamarind Restaurant, another place conveniently located next door to the hotel. Mr Sit took us to the big market out of the Old Town where we tried delicious snacks like dried/fried bamboo or mushroom with kaffir lime.
The cooking class took place at Tamarind’s out-of-town cooking school facility. It was situated al fresco over a beautiful lily pond, and I almost tripped down the last step as I was gawking at the raised beds where they grew much of their produce for the classes.
We learnt to cook sticky rice, fish wrapped in banana leaves, lemongrass stuffed with chicken (very hard to stuff the thin dry-season lemongrass let me tell you!), buffalo laap salad, eggplant and tomato dips, and sweet coconut sticky rice. Delicious!
We also found another source of snacks. Along our road closer to town is D&T Supermarket, which was playing very loud techno music when we were in there, and seemed to stock an extensive range of snack foods and very little of anything else. Seemed like it was designed for party animals post-partying! We picked up purple sweet potato Pringle-alikes, water and R found an AU$2 “whisky” that he bought just so he could say that he had. Ugh!
Day Three we headed out of town a bit further, and visited the Kuang Si waterfall, which was gorgeous, and also the Bear Sanctuary, located within the waterfall park. The bears were rescued from people who were breeding them for their bile (makes you “strong” apparently!) and kept in horrible conditions. They’re still in captivity, but at least they have spacious areas to live in, and aren’t harvested.
On our way back, we stopped in at the “weaving and papermaking village” – Ban Xang Khong. There’s a number of houses/shops selling handmade scarves (silk or cotton, generally) or handmade paper. We ended up coming away with a lovely silk scarf.
Sunset over the Mekong
We ended the day with a sunset cruise along the Mekong in a long-tail boat. This is obviously a big tourist attraction, as there was a flotilla of long-tail boats all doing the same thing: chugging their way upstream, then we all turned in a great wave, and floated downstream watching the sun set over the mountains. Gorgeous.
If Luang Prabang is to be believed, Laos is a laid-back, friendly and welcoming place with great food. I’d love to visit again.
Two Weeks Away 