Jarrod and Sara’s Site

Jarrod and I fell in love with the city of Luang Prabang, and ended up staying for about a week for a little mini-vacation for the Christmas holiday during our big vacation. Anyone traveling through here would fall in love with its mellow atmosphere with old French provincial architecture, cafe’s on every corner, and wonderful people watching. It is located where the mighty Mekong River meets the Nam Khan river, so waterfront restaurants perfect for a sunset meal or Beerlao are plentiful. It is listed as a Unesco World Heritage site, so cars, trucks, and other large and noisy machines are not allowed, making for quite a peaceful atmosphere. There was also a great night food market where you could get anything from noodle soup to grilled fish to fried Mekong seaweed to laap to all you can eat vegetarian buffet (and lots of things that we couldn’t identify).

We did fit in some of the sights between Cafe Lattes and French baguettes (when looking back on our time here, I have noticed that everything revolved around what or where we ate that day). One morning we took in the Royal Palace Museum which was a residence to the royal family before the capitol moved to Vientiane, then climbed the few hundred stairs across the street up a large hill called Phu Si. There is a small temple at the top, but we were more interested with the spectacular views of the city, rivers, and mountains.

Luang Prabang has a big handicraft market selling common souvenirs such as T-shirts, photographs, and silver jewelry, but the main focus here is on textiles. One day we went to Xang Khong weaving village to hopefully find some deals outside of the market, but things were still too expensive. It was great to see the women dying their own thread with natural dyes and also weaving it on large looms. They sit on hard backless stools all day, but many bring portable looms down to the river to soak up the cool breeze and river life. Not a bad trade.

We found one small bookstore/swap/cafe place and fell in love. It had wood walls, floors, and paneling, and felt like a treehouse up on the second floor with a small balcony and great breeze. The best part for Jarrod was free nightly movies which they showed on a big screen and had lots of comfy pillows and mats on the floor to relax and lie down on. It was great to chill and watch a movie (3:10 to Yuma) while sipping fruit shakes and Beerlao.

My favorite experience was giving alms to the monks. Every morning the monks wake up early to collect food donations for the day from all of the local people. The day after Christmas we woke up at 5:45am to get ready. Our hotel provided us with sticky rice and some candies to give to the monks, and we waited outside for them to start filing by. From down the street saw a sea of orange robes as the young monks and novice monks quickly approached. They had a lot of ground to cover and were walking quite fast, giving just enough time to put some food into their bucket. Our sticky rice and candies didn’t last too long, then they were gone. The whole experience lasted about five minutes, but it was special to participate in one of the daily routines of the Lao people. No sleeping in for them!

There were many opportunities for more hiking, kayaking, and outdoor activities around Luang Prabang, but we decided to take a little break from the distant outdoors and instead went to a local waterfall for half a day. There was a small national park about thirty minutes away that we visited. It was very peaceful and pretty with three or four different pools on the way to the main waterfall for swimming. We headed to the main event and climbed a steep path to the top, stopping to swim on the way down. Jarrod even found a pool with a rope swing to play in for a while before we had to head back.

Happy New Year everyone! We wish you a great 2008. Thanks again for all of the posts and keeping us in our thoughts. Love, Sara and Jarrod.