Colour is the first of Luang Prabang’s virtues to greet travellers.
Pearly frangipanis with their heady perfume, banks of overgrown trees
peppered with scarlet flowers, the burnt sienna robes of hundreds of
monks and their novices, and resplendent gold and claret wats. The
scent of fresh coffee, river activity, produce markets and spicy food
soon follows.
Dury and I are currently in Luang Prabang, in Laos!
Since writing last time, we caught the bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang
Rai and stayed a couple of nights there. Chiang Rai didn't really seem
to be anything special. Just a smaller and less nice Chiang Mai really.
We were staying at the Mae Hong Son Guesthouse which was nice itself,
but backed onto what looked like the Chiang Rai council estate! Bit
shady! But we were ok.
I was glad to leave though and make the journey to Laos. We got a 4 and
a half hour bus to Chang Kong, but literally just jumped in a tuk-tuk
and told him to take us to the immigration office immediately. The
'friendly and helpful' guy at immigration stamped our visa and sent us
down the road where there were loads of tiny long-tail boats waiting.
We thought we must have missed something because surely we wouldn't
cross the river in one of those?! But then we saw a little hut with a
desk, the woman sold us a ticket each and pointed to a boat! So we
hopped in a crossed the river! That was pretty cool. At the other side,
at Haoxyai, we got our visa and found a guesthouse for the night.
Even that night in Houxyai was really different from Thailand! Everyone
is really laid back and everything seems to move much slower.
From Houxyai the next morning, we went down to the boat dock and got
our tickets for the slow-boat to Luang Prabang. The trip takes two
days, with a stopover in Pakbeng. There is a speed boat but apparently
people have died on that so we chose to take the slow boat. Still can't
decide whether that was even a good choice! The seats were tiny wooden
benches with straight backs and a tiny little cushion. You would have
thought the boat was full but then about 50 more people came down the
hill and all got on. There weren't enough seats so people just had to
sit where there was a space! In the end, most of us moved our benches
to the side and sat down on the floor too cos it was much more comfy
that way. The first day was actually pretty cool. The scenery was
amazing, a group got a guitar out, people were chilling on the sides of
the boat and everyone was in a pretty good mood. By the end of the
second day though, I was pretty glad to get off. It was an EVEN SMALLER
boat on the second day and the benches were attached so we couldn't
move them aside.
Finally arriving at Luang Prabang was a relief and I really like it
here. It's like no other city in the world. It's just like a big
village, or loads of villages all together. There's one main street,
they nickname 'Ferang Road' (foreigner road or something) with lots of
restaurants and shops on. The end of the street turns into a night
market in the evening which was really cool! We went last night and it
was really different from Chiang Mai. All the people are really
friendly and smiling and not pushing you to buy their stuff which is
such a relief after Thailand which is all about hassling you to buy
stuff! On the first day we went out with a couple of girls staying at
our guesthouse to the waterfalls nearby which was pretty cool. We did
some swimming and some jumping in! That night, we also enjoyed a burger
at the Lao Lao Garden which is a cool restaurant on another road.
Getting sick of veg and rice, tofu and rice or veg and tofu, a veggie
burger and fries was definitely a good shout! Today we went up Phu Si
Mountain and looked over the Mekong River which was pretty awesome.
Couldn't take any photots though cos both our cameras have broken
within a week of each other! Boo.
Tomorrow we are leaving for Vientiene to organise our visas for Vietnam
and then will maybe go back up to Vang Vieng or go down to the Four
Thousand Islands. So far, we're undecided.
Anyway, hope everyone is having a good summer back at home.
Missing you
Love Naomi
XXXXX
Source : Travelblog
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