Sarah and I are playing catch-up with our email... It has been a few days since we've been online. So to continue the story from the last posting, we headed down to Luang Prabang from Luang Nam Tha on a bumpy, slow mountain road. We arrived late at night, but even then it was easy to see why the Lonely Planet guidebook describes Luang Prabang as a "tonic for the soul." The city is the old royal capitol of Laos, and has a lot of old, historical French colonial buildings and Buddhist wats stretched out on a peninsula between the Mekong River and a tributary river. The city is certainly geared up for tourism, but that doesn't dampen the feel of the place. We found a little guesthouse with a nice little room with private bath for 50,000 kip ($5.50) a night, and spent the next few days walking the streets and markets. At night, the main street came alive with a crafts market, where locals sell their beautiful work for amazingly cheap prices. We also found an awesome street vendor who had a vegetarian buffet (all you can pile onto one plate) for 5000 kip (about $.60). We ate there a couple times. The food has been great -- in Latin America street food always seems very questionable and is a good way to get sick, but here the food is fresh, tasty and clean. It's a nice change. Our other favorite food in Laos has been noodle soup. You are given a huge bowl of hot, steaming broth with noodles. spices, and a little meat in it along with a huge pile of fresh greens to dunk in the broth. Mmmm.....
Royal Palace, Luang Prabang
We did go on one outing to Tat Kuang Si, an amazing series of waterfalls with terraced edges and beautiful, milky blue water. The stream comes out of some limestone caves somewhere up higher and brings a lot of calcium carbonate down with it, which creates the draperies and terraces you expect inside caves. It was a great place to swim, and quite refreshing in the humid tropical heat. There were even a few birds around! I saw a Crimson Sunbird (awesome), Puff-throated Babbler, Grey-headed Canary-flycatcher, Long-tailed Sibia, and a Common Tailorbird, to name a few.
Tat Kuang Si waterfall, Laos
The best thing about French colonialism - baguette sandwiches!
The swimming hole, Tat Kuang Si waterfall
Back in Luang Prabang, we whiled away the hours by going on long walks to look at the royal palaces (the royal family was "exiled" in the 1970's) and the amazing temples. There were young, saffron-orange robed monks everywhere. I even sat in the internet cafe next to one! Many young Lao boys choose to be ordained as Thevavada Buddist monks for a few months (or up to three years) before continuing on with whatever else they choose to do. They sure make for an interesting sight as they walk the streets, work at the wats (temples), or (early in the morning) collect alms from the faithful.
Luang Prabang has a large, forested hill in the middle of town topped by a wat. On our last night in town we climbed up there for an awesome sunset view of the surrounding countryside, with green limestone mountains rising in all directions and the Big Muddy (Mekong River) shimmering below us.
-Matt!
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