On Thursday, we arrived in Luang Prabang, and since then we've been assailed nonstop by reasons to love Laos. The city is located on a small tongue of land between the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, and the scenery and the architecture are both spectacular. Our guest house here is probably my favorite place that we've stayed; this Wat is across the street and provides a nice view from our balcony.
Near the center of town is a "mountain" with a few small temples on top, and panoramic 360-degree views of the valley. We climbed it on Friday afternoon, before we realized that there's a rainstorm every afternoon here. Afterwards, we had a very productive evening of shopping at the night bazaar -- Laotian souvenirs are both beautiful and cheap!
Our other full day in Luang Prabang was spent on an organized trip to a couple of interesting local destinations. During the morning, we took a boat up the Mekong to Pak Ou cave, a cave right on the river that contains thousands of Buddha statues. Along the way, we stopped at a Hmong village, where I tried locally distilled Lao whiskey (over the strenuous objections of Katherine, dropping some hard-earned knowledge from her year of working on alcohol health policy). The cave itself was a bit of an anticlimax, but the ride along the river was pleasant and scenic.
During the afternoon, we went in a minivan to a nearby waterfall. As this picture of Katherine illustrates, during the rainy season the river overflows its banks and runs along most of the trails as well, so we didn't really hike so much as wade to the waterfall. The park also presented an opportunity for swimming and jumping off rocks. The only disappointment of the afternoon trip was the ride in the minivan, which proved to be a dark foreshadowing of the next day's journey to Vang Vieng...
On Thursday, we arrived in Luang Prabang, and since then we've been assailed nonstop by reasons to love Laos. The city is located on a small tongue of land between the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, and the scenery and the architecture are both spectacular. Our guest house here is probably my favorite place that we've stayed; this Wat is across the street and provides a nice view from our balcony.
Near the center of town is a "mountain" with a few small temples on top, and panoramic 360-degree views of the valley. We climbed it on Friday afternoon, before we realized that there's a rainstorm every afternoon here. Afterwards, we had a very productive evening of shopping at the night bazaar -- Laotian souvenirs are both beautiful and cheap!
Our other full day in Luang Prabang was spent on an organized trip to a couple of interesting local destinations. During the morning, we took a boat up the Mekong to Pak Ou cave, a cave right on the river that contains thousands of Buddha statues. Along the way, we stopped at a Hmong village, where I tried locally distilled Lao whiskey (over the strenuous objections of Katherine, dropping some hard-earned knowledge from her year of working on alcohol health policy). The cave itself was a bit of an anticlimax, but the ride along the river was pleasant and scenic.
During the afternoon, we went in a minivan to a nearby waterfall. As this picture of Katherine illustrates, during the rainy season the river overflows its banks and runs along most of the trails as well, so we didn't really hike so much as wade to the waterfall. The park also presented an opportunity for swimming and jumping off rocks. The only disappointment of the afternoon trip was the ride in the minivan, which proved to be a dark foreshadowing of the next day's journey to Vang Vieng...
1 comment:
I look a hot mess in this picture.
Post a Comment