First few days in Luang Prabang

View our location map in Luang Prabang

When we arrived at our beautiful guesthouse just outside of Luang Prabang we were so pleased that we had chosen it to stay for about 2 and a half weeks here.  We had a large, awesome bungalow with a big balcony overlooking the Nam Khan river which was really private and cool.  We had a view of rural river life and saw Monks bathing in the river, local fishermen, people tending vegetable crops along the side of the river, and boats gently floating downstream.  A cool insight into local river life.

So we were devastated when we found that their internet was really slow, and we had planned to use a week or two for working on the website in Luang Prabang.  We stayed for 4 blissful days before reluctantly moving into the town (“city” is the word they use but seriously this is a small town the size of Warkworth).

We had some added excitement when Karen inadvertently put her pack over a hole in the floor and the next morning noticed a couple of ants on top of her pack – which on closer inspection turned out to be about 2000 ants that had taken over her entire pack and required complete emptying of said pack and thorough cleaning!  We must be in the slow Asian groove by now though because she found it quite funny and thought it was a good opportunity to clean out her pack anyway.

We have visited some awesome temples in the town and seen some of the pretty French architecture, and the night market is really amazing.  So many awesome different foods and some really nice clothing and household items too.   So far though we haven’t quite found the magic that people talk about here.  We aren’t sure if this is because we are jaded after being amongst so much natural beauty up north, or not, but Eric, Emma and Tricia expressed the same feeling so we think that might possibly be it.  Other people are talking about how quiet it is here, and for us it seems quite busy after the serene beauty in northern Laos.  Eric and Emma have already left and gone to Vang Vieng, and are trying to convince us to go and join them there… so we will have to see.  We are going to spend a few more days here at least to see how we like it in town and then decide what to do next.  Our photos are here.