Luang Prabang is located about 350km north of the countries capital Vientiane, or a 3-6 hour drive from Vang Vieng.(There are 2 roads, the bus uses the flat road that goes around the mountain which takes 6 hrs and private vans or mini vans go over the hill and that takes around 3 hrs)
The old town is a UNESCO world heritage site and there are two rivers that converge here. The mighty mekong lines the north of the town and the Nam Khan river runs south.
Temples and Monks
Luang Prabang is such a magical place. There are many temples or wats in the city and the oldest temple Wat Wisunarat dates back to 1513. You could spend a week visiting all the temples and still not see them all. You will find one on nearly every street corner, many only a few hundred metres from another and you can often hear chanting of the monks and drums coming from the temples during the day.
The mornings come alive in Luang Prabang as the monks that reside in the temples and monasteries come out to do morning alms. My children were intrigued by this special ceremony and we woke for the procession nearly every day we were there.
The monks eat only the food they are given by worshipers in the morning, and cease eating at 12pm every day. The streets were lined with worshippers with offerings for the monks and these treats included a variety of fruits, sticky rice, breads and pastries, cookies and other treats.
Our 3 year old insisted on being woken at 6am every morning so he could watch and one day exclaimed "I want to be a monk when I grow up". We asked him why and his reply was "So i can get lots of sticky rice and lollies from all the people."
Markets
There are also two markets in Luang Prabang each day. The morning market is open from around 5am and this is where many of the worshippers go to buy food to give to the monks, and a night market that opens from 5pm every evening.
The markets were another highlight of our time in Luang Prabang and after watching the monks we would go to the morning markets for breakfast. The morning markets are very interesting to visit as there is food of every kind, fresh meats, fish, turtles, birds etc and other greens and fruits.
We love the sticky rice in Laos and in Luang Prabang you can buy a special purple sticky rice that is cooked in coconut milk and covered in coconut sugar. We enjoyed this for breakfast many a morning with fresh juices. Yum!
We loved the night markets. They were so colorful and the handicrafts were impressive. We were lucky to visit a weaving village where we saw many of the scarves and sarongs being made. The workmanship is very detailed and the colors spectacular. These and many other handicrafts are sold at the night markets and the range is large.
The children also enjoyed watching paper being made in the village and there were many things for sale in the markets that were made of this special parchment including books, paintings and light shades. We wandered for hours every night looking at the stalls and never tired of visiting.
Elephants
Laos is also known as the country of a million elephants, and while visiting Luang Prabang made it a goal to see some elephants in their natural habitat. We visited the Elephant camp located around 11km out of Luang Prabang and were pleasantly surprised that we were the only people there that day.
We had a wonderful morning watching the elephants in the wild and also getting to feed them bananas, sugarcane and bamboo.
While Laos used to have an abundance of elephants in the jungle there are now only between 500-1000 elephants left which is really sad.
Luang Prabang ended up being my favourite place in Laos. The city is very cultured and there is a cool vibe about, combined with the temples, monks and adventure activities including learning to become a mahout or elephant trainer makes it one of the most unique places in the world that you could visit. I love Luang Prabang and can't wait to visit again one day.
