Around the World in 8000 days: Luang Prabang - Town, temples and a bit of a disappointment

Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Luang Prabang - Town, temples and a bit of a disappointment

Royal Palace Museum, Luang Prabang

From Chiang Rai, we took an overnight bus to Luang Prabang. The nice thing about the journey is that you arrive at the Thai/Laos border, in this case the International Border Control Friendship Bridge IV, fairly soon, so none of that nasty 'middle of the night border crossing' disruption.

On the subject of the border crossing, we got our visa on arrival, at a cost (at that time) of US$35 each.

Royal Palace Museum, Luang Prabang

That is for UK passport holders, but it does vary by country, (a) whether you can get a visa on arrival, and (b) how much it is, so do check first. Be aware that the fee has to be paid in cash in dollars; you might be able to pay in Thai Baht, but it will cost you significantly more, and if you are there any time other than 8am to 4pm on a normal (non-holiday) weekday, there will be an extra out-of-hours charge of US$1. There was also a 10,000 Laos Kip entry fee.

The not so nice thing about the journey, other than a distinct lack of sleep, was the time and place that we arrived in Luang Prabang. We got there at around 6am, but the bus didn't drop us in town, it dropped us at the main bus station, some distance out, just as it was starting to rain. The jumbos - the mini trucks that are the common form of transport here - soon arrived to take us in to town; we thought the price was far more expensive than seemed reasonable, but of course they rather have you over a barrel.

Wat Mai Souvannaphummaham, Luang Prabang

At least the hotel were had booked had a night duty guy on, who let us in to the reception area, where we could sit and have a hot drink while we waited for the day to start. We did consider that, as we were actually up before sunrise, we might take the opportunity to go along to see the famous gathering of alms by the local monks.

Wat Mai Souvannaphummaham, Luang Prabang

However, this was another one of those times where we feel that tourists are in danger of ruining a local tradition, as we have seen video of tourists getting in the way, interrupting, and generally being totally obnoxious. Obviously we would not have behaved that way, but we took the view that we didn't want to add to, or encourage, this being viewed as a sightseeing opportunity. So we gave it a miss.

Luckily the hotel had a room ready for us nice and early, so we were able to get a bit of sleep before heading out for the day.

Wat Mai Souvannaphummaham, Luang Prabang

Now, Laos is a country that I have been looking forward to visiting for a while, because it appealed as a place that might still be relatively unspoiled by large scale tourism. It is also somewhere that we have only ever heard positive things about - everyone who has been here seems to love it, and they often return.

But we didn't love it and I'll explain why in this and some of the other Laos posts to come. That doesn't mean we didn't enjoy any of it - there were some good aspects - but overall, we felt that Laos was the country where we most felt like we were being treated as a cash cow, to be ripped of if possible. It also felt like there was a real split between the local people and the tourists here, with we tourists being corralled into our own areas.

Luang Prabang

Here in Luang Prabang, the peninsula of the city, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, is effectively entirely given over to tourism, with locals living further inland. Aside from the temples, almost everything here was a hotel, tour group agent, souvenir shop or a western style restaurant or bar.

Now don't get me wrong, as an easy place to chill out, to take a break from any Asia overload, or to have a holiday somewhere in Asia without having to immerse yourself too much into the food and culture, it is probably perfect.

Night Market, Luang Prabang

And we enjoyed our time here as a relaxing break. But it really doesn't feel like you are engaging with the country. I suspect that you need to go to less well known areas, probably in the south of the country, to do that.

And then there are the prices. We were genuinely surprised at how much things cost here, be it tours, meals or souvenirs. Given the low price of groceries, and what we learned about wages in the country, there is absolutely no way that the prices we were being charged were anything other than extortionate.

Morning Market, Luang Prabang

I know that they have to import some many things, making base prices a little higher than Thailand, and I don't mind that they put prices a bit higher for tourists, but the amounts here felt unreasonable. Even worse, we got the distinct impression that those people working directly with tourists, and those that own the factories where the souvenirs are made, and various officials, all make a very nice profit, while those working for them or in the rest of the country, are left in poverty.

It also seems that most of the tours are not very ethical. The hill tribe tours sounded like they are of the 'human zoo' variety, and the elephant ones all seem to involve riding.

Garavek storytelling, Luang Prabang

So anyway, what about what we did like here. You can quite see why the whole of the old town here on the peninsula is a UNESCO site. It is full of lovely old buildings, from temples to French Colonial. You can very easily imagine the streets devoid of any kind of motorised vehicle, and you will still see the odd handcart being pushed now.

There were some nice places to eat and drink. The Coconut Garden was a reliable and reasonably priced place. If you want to spend a bit more L'Elephant is supposed to be good, though we didn't try it, the 3 Nagas was OK, and Blue Lagoon was excellent.

There were some good cafes - Saffron Coffee and Le Café Ban Wat Sene - which were also by far the best place to get wifi and aircon. Another café, Le Banneton, is known for its croissants.

Wat Sensoukaram, Luang Prabang

We also rather liked a nice little bar and tapas place called Opera House, which also had good wifi. There are other, livelier bars like Utopia, Hive etc, but we didn't bother with them.

Wat Sensoukaram, Luang Prabang

And bear in mind that Luang Prabang has a curfew; I can't remember the exact time, but it was about 11:30pm, and many of the smaller hotels do actually close their doors then, because the staff go to bed.

One evening here, we went along to Garavek, which is a little company that holds story telling shows, in a little room with about thirty seats. It isn't a totally authentic experience - realistically, nothing for tourists ever is - but it is enjoyable and sufficiently informative to be worthwhile. You can buy a drink there to take in with you if you want to.

But perhaps the most interesting thing that we did in town, was a couple of hours spent at Big Brother Mouse. BBM is part of an aim to get Lao people reading. Sasha, Khamla and Siphone have worked together to provide childrens' story books that are written in the Lao language and English, so that children can learn to read, learn English and learn enjoy reading. In addition, in Luang Prabang, they run two sessions a day where tourists come in to help local youths with their English. That can be reading to them, listening to them read, helping them with their homework, or even just having a conversation with them.