We had decided a while back to fly from Hanoi to Lao. In fact, it's the reason we had the three-way ticket from Siem Reap to Hanoi to Lao in the first place as the three-way ticket actually made it cheaper. We had heard a bunch of horror stories about the bus ride and the border crossing so we opted to take the quick 45-minute flight to Luang Prabang.
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The vibe in Lao is completely different than in Vietnam. We had heard that Lao was sleepy, but the slow pace of life in Lao still was a bit of a shock. Luang Prabang sits on a peninsula where the Nam Khan river flows into the Mekong. The city is very small consisting of just three main roads running lengthwise on the peninsula between the two rivers. In the middle of the town there is a steep hill that houses Buddhist temples and a stupa that crowns the hilltop. This main "old town" is only about a kilometer long and a quarter kilometer wide yet is home to about 20 wats (a wat is a Buddhist temple that has living quarters for monks). Buddhist monks are a very common sight in Luang Prabang.
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In addition to the various wats, temples and stupas, there is a great deal of French colonial influence and much of the architecture is French. This all makes for a very beautiful and peaceful place.
Just outside Luang Prabang we visited the Kuang Si waterfalls. The falls are a popular spot for locals and tourists alike. But the area is very big and it was pretty easy to get away from the crowds. Though we did try out the rope swing in the main pool.
The falls are beautiful! We have seen a LOT of waterfalls on this trip and this may be our favorite. It almost looked fake like something from a zoo or Las Vegas. But it is all natural. Swimming in the emerald waters was very refreshing and the "doctor fish" nibbled at our feet. These little fish can also be found on many street corners in Southeast Asia. Small tanks are set up and customers pay good money to dip their feet in and have the fish nibble and massage their feet (supposedly eating away at dead skin). It was certainly an interesting sensation, but one we were glad to not have paid for.
We hiked around the area as well going up to the top of the falls. All in all it was a great day in a beautiful spot.
It is not all peace and quiet in Luang Prabang though as it does have its fair share of restaurants and bars. We mostly ate street food on an alley off the night market where 10,000 kip (about USD$1.20) gets you a large plate that you can fill up with as much food as you can. The food was great and Leslie enjoyed the night market as usual.
We also spent one night in a local bar with a very international crowd watching the opening match of the World Cup between host South Africa and Mexico. Watching it with such an enthusiastic crowd gave us a new appreciation for "the beautiful game" though we still needed someone to explain to us Americans why a draw isn't anti-climatic.
After Luang Prabang we made our way south and decided to stop in Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng has become a backpacker mecca in recent years and we have seen T-shirts from the small town as far away as South America. The town is located in a gorgeous valley along the Nam Song river surrounded by karst mountains similar to those in Halong Bay, Vietnam.
Supposedly the town started to attract the attention of backpackers due to the beautiful setting and a chance to visit an unspoiled Lao town. Ironically, the town is now overrun with backpackers, mostly younger, who come to go tubing on the river and get drunk. Guesthouses, restaurants and TV bars are everywhere. The TV bars are an interesting concept where TVs playing bootlegged DVDs of American TV shows -- mostly Friends and Family Guy -- are played non-stop and backpackers lie around watching and nursing hangovers (or start on new ones).
We were going to try the tubing but we started to notice that a lot of the westerners around town had patches over their eyes. We even saw one guy with patches over both eyes being led home from the hospital by his girlfriend! We started inquiring about this to people we met and found out that many of the people who had been tubing came away with conjunctivitis (pink eye)! Some of the backpackers tried to claim that it was just an outbreak in the hostels, but we asked one of the guys that rents the tubes and he just shrugged and said that it was the start of the rainy season and things are getting washed down from the mountains. So we decided against it and got out of dodge a day early. Vang Vieng wasn't one of favorite spots which is too bad really because it is a beautiful area.
Our last stop in Lao was the capital city of Vientiane. Like the rest of Lao, even its biggest city has a peaceful, unhurried feel to it. Like Luang Prabang, Vientiane sits in the Mekong valley. There are a lot of temples and wats here as well and we visited a few, though we are beginning to get a little "templed out."
One of the things we were really looking forward to was the street stalls and beer gardens that set up along the Mekong. However there is a good deal of construction going on now because they are redoing the promenade along the river and there didn't seem to be much going on. We opted not to endure the construction and instead stuck to the restaurants near our guesthouse.
Vientiane is also the place we found ourselves on the 16th of June, more than eight months into our "honeymoon", for our first wedding anniversary. We splurged and dropped nearly USD$20 on a big sushi dinner and talked about how great that week in Dunton and Telluride was and how fantastic this year has been.
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