Laos: Paradise

Published in

Rachel and Gil’s Travels

6 min readSep 30, 2019

After the hustle and bustle of Singapore, Vietnam, and Cambodia, Laos was just what we needed. We spent 4 incredible days in Luang Prabang and wish we were able to stay longer. So far Laos has been my (Rachel’s) favorite stop! It was the perfect mix of activity and relaxation with a trendy food culture and a welcoming backpacker scene.

Activities

Luang Prabang has an abundance of great activities, but not the same pressure as being in a big city with a TripAdvisor checklist of 47 items you must do before you die.

Pak Ou Caves — We took a tour of the caves with 1000s of buddha sculptures. The tour included a 4 hour boat ride there and back on the Mekong River which was relaxing and great for reading (see our progress at the bottom,) but the caves were somewhat anti-climactic after being in Cambodia. We also had a major learning here — we booked through a tour company which was an easy route, but we could have done it ourselves for 25% of what we paid
Kuang Si waterfalls — Breathtakingly beautiful waterfalls with light blue water in the lush, green forest (see below!) We swam, hiked, and saw a bear conservation center nearby
Mount Phousi — There is a (small) mountain in the middle of the city with had incredible views at the top and buddha statues lining the hike up
Temples — In typical Southeast Asian fashion, Luang Prabang has countless Temples so we checked out a few that dated back to the 16th century. Wat Xiengthong had mosaic glass images of daily life which was really different from the others we’ve seen so far on our Asian adventures
Almsgiving — Every morning at 5:30am the local people give rice as an offering to the 1000s of monks in Luang Prabang. We got ourselves up to watch it all happen — it was cool to see the monks lining the streets, so many of whom were 10–15 years old

Food

Laotian food is different from anything we had tasted before. They eat sticky rice by hand and use it like a pita to grab the dips and proteins. We had so many great meals, including a Vegan tasting menu titled “Eat like an Elephant” and dinner at a restaurant that is surround by lily ponds which are classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We enjoyed Laotian curries, papaya salads, chicken laap, and kilos of sticky rice.

In classic Southeast Asian fashion, we explored the night and morning markets. The night market is geared towards tourists and had endless varieties of Asian foods, but the morning market was an experience like no other. It is a produce market for locals, and had everything from live chickens, live lizzards, live eels, live tarantulas, live frogs, and rice.

There is also a cool cafe culture from the French influence which has definitely transitioned to the 21st century with hipster vibes. We loved wandering and finding cute places to sit for coffee, bringing us back to our Brooklyn roots.

Charm

Luang Prabang is a small city which made it charming to wander by foot. The main “downtown” area was no more than a 40 minute walk end to end which we loved exploring since each block had a temple or hidden coffee shop.

The backpacker culture in Luang Prabang brought the charm to another level. There is one main bar/restaurant/lounge, Utopia, that is the hub for all young travelers. We went our first night for a drink and saw that they have a daily sunrise yoga. When we returned the next morning there was a sign that yoga was cancelled that week, but we still wandered our way in and conducted our own class on the patio, stayed for breakfast, and read for hours.

Local ordinance requires bars to close at 11:30pm (earlier than Ithaca!) so all travelers head together from Utopia to a bowling alley/archery range that is open until 3am. One night after Utopia, we jumped in a tuktuk with 10+ backpackers and made our way to the after hours event. Gil gave his archery skills a go and won himself 2 cigarettes (which he politely declined.) Inside the bowling alley, Israeli music was blasting which made sense since 25% of the backpackers were Israeli — it was a unique nightlife unlike anything we’ve experienced before. Similar to a college town community misplaced in Southeast Asia.

Lastly, our hotel was luxurious and built around functioning rice paddies with infinity pools in the center, mountain views, and bikes to navigate the complex. We enjoyed afternoon dips in the pool, and Gil brought out his drone (thanks Sydney, Brett & Hannah!)