Luang Prabang, Laos

We arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos on January 8, 2010. I was worried it would be a lengthy process to get our visa, which we did at the airport. However, our plane landed at 10 AM and by 11 AM we were at the Cold River Guest House, where we are staying. Our room is on the ground floor and opens to a shared terrace between our room and the rooms on either side of us. We can sit on our (shaded) spacious terrace (see photo) and look out over the Nam Khan river. Many people cook over charcoal fires so it smells like we are camping.

Luang Prabang is a lovely town. It is made up of villages with about 120 houses per village. There are many temples (I think at least one per village). In any case, there are temples everywhere, many of them quite striking. The architecture here is beautiful, and there are many little alleyways made of brick with gutters (see photo – looks like a very Roman approach, although obviously more recent!). The town is very charming and easy to like.
Reminds me a little bit of a ski resort town (only in Asia and without the snow, of course). There are mountains all around us and the architecture is very European. I have been impressed with the quality of the building construction. Very high ceilings, wide open rooms, large windows, lovely tiled or hard wood floors and wood trim. The carpentry is impressive.

The town sits where 3 rivers meet. Our guesthouse over looks the Nam Khan and the main street in Luang Prabang runs parallel to the Mekong River. We are used to seeing people bathing in the river during the day. These are most often kids but sometimes novice monks (who are young or teenaged boys) and occasionally men.

There is a large hill (Phousi Hill) between our guesthouse and the main part of town. There is a temple on this hill and gorgeous views from even part-way up. Ron and I have been going up the hill as a “shortcut” to downtown. Apparently it doesn’t get us into the main part of town any faster, but the exercise is good and the view is spectacular. Here's a photo of Ron at the point on the top of the hill were we cross to go down to the Monk school.


The stairs take us right into the temple where the Monk school is, so it is very convenient for us going to early morning classes at the Monk school. On Thursday morning Ron and I have a Monk school class at 7:30 AM and on Friday morning we have a class at 8:10 AM.

We are walking everywhere and loving it. It gets quite hot during the day (30 degrees C in the sun) but there is a breeze and it is lovely in the shade, of which there is plenty. It is cool (10 to 15 degrees C) at night, so it is very easy to sleep comfortably here.

The animals here seem well taken care of – not fat, but not too skinny either (the cats could be fatter but seem ok). There are cats and dogs at many of the homes and I have even seen two rabbits at one. None of the animals are spade or neutered, so there are lots of puppies and young cats around. They all seem to hang out in front of their homes, which the people do too. The families seem to have very integrated lives. The kids are with the parents while the parents work and the animals are all there too. On Phousi Hill I saw the first kitten I have seen here that truly looks starving - he is black and I think he is feral. So I bought a tin of tuna and left it on the mountain - the next day it was in the same place but empty (Ron says a snake ate it but I'm pretty sure it was a cat - maybe not the one I saw but if not, hopefully his Mom so he can get more milk). Anyway, I've been leaving some dried beef for him (kind of a home-made beef jeky they sell for about 50 cents here) on a regular basis. I'm hooked! Everyone thinks I'm crazy; "it's probably something else that is eating it". Oh well.

It is easy to eat well in Luang Prabang for not much money (relative to North America), but I was surprised by the lack of whole grains. There is white rice and you can get white rice noodles and white baguettes for breakfast. Whole wheat or alternative grains are hard to find. It is possible to get 7-grain bread at a couple of European cafes who cater to westerners, but the locals don’t seem to eat it. There is also a lack of variety in the raw greens. Iceberg or romaine lettuce is used in salads, but that seems to be it. Mind you, the fruit is lovely. I have bought mango so fresh that I can peel it. It is delicious. We have been trying other local fruit (dragon fruit, tamarind, mangosteen, lychee fruit,…). And the peanuts are fresh and roasted here. One café even grinds their own peanut butter (freshly ground) when you order baguette with peanut butter. Delicious! There are also lovely Laos dishes that I am fond of. I had miang the other day. These are do-it-yourself hand rolls (think fajitas) consisting of a leaf of lettuce, with either caramelized sticky rice paste or aubergine (eggplant) paste, on which you put peanuts, lemongrass, rice noodle, coriander, green beans, an edible raw eggplant and chilis (optional), then roll and eat. These are wonderful, and I was thrilled to recognize a street vendor making this the other day when I walked by.

It is interesting to be living out of one room, especially since there isn’t much storage space (a small wardrobe with less than 10 hangers between the two of us and two small tables with a small drawer each). Oh and a few hooks on the wall. Luckily we didn’t bring much with us and aren’t buying much (although I have bought two Lao skirts (called “sin”s) for teaching at the Monk school). We were pleased to find that our guesthouse has hot water! We were led to believe we would have cold water showers only. However, there are electric showers in our bathrooms and every room has a private bathroom. We very much appreciate this luxury. It took a little getting used to the showers, as they are literally just attached to the wall of the tiled bathroom, with no separation between shower and the rest of the bathroom. One gets used to having a wet toilet seat and to not spraying the toilet paper (I was removing it from the bathroom before my shower until I realized I didn’t need to do that as long as I paid attention to where I pointed the shower head and hose - Duh! ).