Jill & George's trip: Relaxing Luang Prabang

Our ‘VIP minibus’ from Vang Vieng was once again, unsurprisingly, an old Toyota which was so small that George didn’t actually fit in the seats! We shared the bus with a group of Korean tourists, who were less than half the size of George and so he was resigned to sitting on a fold out seat for the 6 hour bumpy journey up through the hills (we had been warned to take motion sickness precautions for good reason!) It was an unforgettable journey though as the road wound up through some of the most stunning scenery we had experienced. We had thought that the previous journey up to Vang Vieng had been picturesque, but this eclipsed even that. Limestone hills rose up through the mist in every direction, with views of the beautiful valleys from the peaks, which rose out of the clouds. We travelled through small hill-tribe villages where local village life was in full swing; kids in full tribal colours playing ball whilst their parents were weaving and cooking outside their wooden huts and animals playing at the side of the road.

We arrived in the beautiful UNESCO world heritage town of Luang Prabang and instantly knew that we would like it. The town had a real French feel with old colonial style wooden villas, with coloured shutters overlooking the 2 rivers which ran alongside the town. There are rumoured to be around 80 Wats in the area, so consequently monks in vivid orange robes could be seen in almost every direction. The old town was full of lovely little cafes and restaurants which we became well accustomed with over the few days we stayed. Relaxing seemed to be the main pastime and it was the perfect place to stop and catch our breath for a few days. We booked a 2 day trek up into the hill tribes (which deserves a blog entry of its own, so more about that later) and then spent the majority of our time wandering round the peaceful town, enjoying the scenery and browsing the very tempting nightly markets.

We found a lovely little independent second hand bookshop, L’Etranger, housed in a traditional wooden villa. In the evening, they turned the upstairs into a little cinema and George and I enjoyed sipping ginger tea whilst we relaxed back on cushions and watched the DVD in the corner of the room! The walls were covered in bookshelves full of old issues of National Geographic dating back to the 1960’s, so we ended up spending quite a lot of time relaxing there (and enjoying the homemade peanut butter on toast).

For a contrast to wandering round the old town and photographing the many ornate and beautiful Wats, we decided to take a cooking course to learn how to make some of the traditional Laos meals we had been enjoying. The course began with a trip to the local market, where our teacher showed us the staple ingredients. It was slightly alarming to learn that the washing up bowl full of pungent brownish fermenting liquid with fish heads sticking contained the fish sauce which is used in pretty much every dish in Laos! I tried to remove the mental picture from my mind and concentrated on the various rice and fruit on display. Once back in town, our teachers demonstrated a number of dishes and George and I tried our hand at 5 of them. It was really fun and I’m sure we’ll be trying out the chicken laap, Luang Prabang salad and pork with eggplant when we get back – be warned!

On our last day in Luang Prabang after the trek, I unfortunately suffered from heatstroke and was quite unwell. We had to check out of our hotel and thought we could probably kill time at the nearby Arthouse cafe which we had been going to for breakfast. I was really struggling and thought I might keel over so George went to ask if there was anywhere I could lie down. The owner, a lovely American woman, didn’t just help, she immediately showed me upstairs to her own bedroom where she made up the bed with blankets and let me sleep there all afternoon even bringing me lemon and water to rehydrate! I wanted to hug her! I don’t know what I would have done without her kindness – needless to say, we tipped her generously and she agreed to treat herself to dinner on us.