Weekend getaway to Luang Prabang

ON Sunday May 16, I reached Luang Prabang, probably the most beautiful town I've visited so far ... It was a long trip by coach from Vientiane (made even longer by a breakdown which luckily happened only ten kilometres before reaching the town), but I was finally there!

I've been to two other world heritage cities during this trip, Melaka and Georgetown, which I really liked, particularly Melaka, but Luang Prabang has one advantage over them: it is surrounded by beautiful nature, both water (the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers) and mountains covered in forest.

Anyway, comparisons shouldn't be made as each of these places has got something that the others do not have.

The old part of this town is wedged between the mighty Mekong river on one side and the Nam Khan river, one of its tributaries, on the other, making it a real small peninsula surrounded on three sides by water. In addition to that, this old part has a steep hill in its middle, Phu Si, from the top of which one can enjoy beautiful views of the town and the nature around it.

One can spend hours, weather and temperature allowing, walking around the streets and alleys making up the historical centre, lined with beautiful French colonial houses, wooden Lao houses and Buddhist temples. And most of these pretty houses are being used now as hotels, guesthouses, cafes, restaurants or shops catering for the many tourists visiting the town. This is possibly the place with the highest number of tourists I've been to so far, and perhaps the most expensive, if we exclude Kuala Lumpur.

I don't mean very expensive, but particularly food costs on average the double of what I normally pay in Thailand, for instance.

A perfect place to spend five whole days, visiting the main sights, chilling out and relaxing. Yes, I know, I always say I spend time relaxing in most of the places I've written about, but five months of travelling give you plenty of time to do that, plus the high temperatures force you to do that!

Luang Prabang is about 700 metres above sea level, but you feel some respite mostly at night time, as the days are almost as hot as in the other places I've been to.

Among the many temples, in my opinion the one that cannot be missed is Wat Xieng Thong, considered the most beautiful temple in Luang Prabang, built in Luang Prabang classic temple architecture in 1560.

I found the scenes from Hindu epic Ramayana depicted outside the Royal funerary chapel found in the same compound simply fantastic.

Apart from enjoying Luang Prabang's splendid architecture, there are many other things one can do in and around town.

The Hmong Night Market taking place every evening in central Sisavangvong Street is very popular and a very good place to buy some traditional Lao handicraft, even though one has to haggle hard to get a good price.

In my case, one morning I went to visit the interesting Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre which is devoted to the different ethnic groups present in Laos, whereas one evening I went to see a dancing show featuring the local Royal ballet company, who performed both folk and classical Lao dancing, including some scenes from the Ramayana.

The historical influence India had on South-east Asia is quite incredible ... if you remember, I attended another Ramayana ballet in Yogyakarta, Java, almost two months ago! Other evenings I had dinner or went for a drink with other travellers I met.

One day I also went to Tat Kuang Si, 32km south of Luang Prabang, another reason that makes a visit to this town worth it. It is a huge waterfall in a forest, or I should say one bigger waterfall on top and then many small terraced waterfalls forming several turquoise-blue pools below ... never seen anything like this in my life — the green of the forest and the blue of the water all mixed together!

Saturday the 21st, I took the same coach I arrived in Luang Prabang with, but going the opposite direction — another nine hours of mostly beautiful mountain landscape and I was in Vientiane again.

From the north station I reached the Talat Sao station in central Vientiane to catch the 6pm bus to Nong Khai, the place I began my Laos trip from and where I am at the moment.

However, I'm off to Korat the next day, almost 400km south from here.

Hopefully the day after tomorrow I will catch a bus from there to get to Aranya Prathet, the Thai town at the border with Cambodia!

The Brunei Times