I don’t know what blog I had read or what pictures I had seen but Laos was on the top of my wish list for places to go when we started planning this trip. I didn’t fully “appreciate” the length in getting to Luang Prabang (see our blog “How to Get From Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang). But we’ve noticed that the longer and more exhausting a trip is, the more we appreciate the end destination.
Luang Prabang is located on the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers and was the royal capital of Laos until 1975. It’s amazingly well preserved and the French influence is very obvious when walking around the cute little town. Seeing all of the tourists on our slow boat ride I also assumed the smaller town would be covered with tourists, but we were pleasantly surprised at how local everything felt. The town itself is a very relaxed place with just a few must-see tourist attractions, but in my opinion most of the activities are outside of the town and require a commute. If you are the type of person that can easily relax in warm weather while drinking a beer and reading a book, then Luang Prabang is the place for you. If you always need to be doing something every hour of the day then it has the chance of driving you crazy.
A couple of places we would highly suggest in the town of Luang Prabang would be the Royal Palace, Mount Phousi, and the UXO museum. The palace was built in 1904 and was occupied until 1975 when the monarchy was overthrown. It’s also not much to look at from the outside, but the inside is very cool in terms of architecture. It’s also been turned into a museum, so a lot of very cool artifacts (including a piece of the moon given to Laos by the USA). The UXO museum is a somber, but very worthwhile place to visit. UXO stands for unexploded ordinance which is still a huge problem for the country which saw over two million tons of explosives dropped onto the country between 1964 and 1973 by the United States. A lot of the explosives still haven’t been found and remain un-detonated, which means children, farmers, and even tourists stumble upon them numerous times a year. Here are some facts about the UXO in the country. The last site in the city of Luang Prabang is Mount Phousi. Phousi is a giant hill in the middle of the city that has a Buddhist temple at the top and offers up some great views of the city and surrounding area.
The main attraction in this area are the Kuang Si Waterfalls. It takes about 45 minutes to get there and we elected to take a van as opposed to renting motorbikes (which was a wise decision on our part because the roads to get there were very rough). More than likely you have seen pictures of these falls somewhere. My mom sent me a picture of the falls she found while looking through a calendar, so you see them everywhere and that’s because they are the definition of picturesque. We hiked up to the top which only took about 15 minutes and then joined the others down in the areas where you are allowed to swim and hang out in the falls. Absolutely worthwhile and I don’t think anyone goes to Luang Prabang and doesn’t visit Kuang Si.
There are a bunch of options pertaining to food and drink in Luang Prabang. The most popular bar/restaurant in the area that we visited a couple of times was the Utopia. it is probably the most stereotypical hangout spot for backpackers you could imagine. It has a HUGE outdoor space with beanbags, hammocks, tiki torches, and other things that make you feel like you are on an island resort. It’s filled with people of all ages, but primarily younger kids that are recovering from the night before and depending on how late you are there, getting ready for the night ahead.
The food is similar to what you will find in Bangkok, with the exception of some country specific dishes like pork larb. Larb is a meat salad with minced pork that is seasoned with fish sauce, chili flakes, lime juice, and toasted sticky rice. The restaurants we enjoyed were: the Bamboo Garden, which was a hole-in-the-wall on a side street where older ladies make your dish in front of you in their massive woks. One of Caitlin’s favorite spots was the Big Tree Cafe, where we spent a couple of afternoons drinking some delicious iced coffees and working on our laptops. We hit up a Mexican restaurant that was decent, but I think nine months in we have just figured out that no Mexican restaurant will be as good as what we have at home.
In conclusion, we had a great time in Luang Prabang. I was sick for a day and we had roosters in our backyard which woke us up at extremely inconvenient times, but the city itself was worth a week visit.