Most beautiful city in SE Asia?
Trip dates: December 29, 2016 - December 31, 2016
Luang Prabang is a city in Laos that was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its well-preserved architectural, religious, and cultural heritage. The city is often at the top of backpacker destinations and touted as the most beautiful city in SE Asia. That's a lofty claim, but when you arrive, it's easy to see why so many would agree.
The city sits in a valley surrounded by lush green mountains at a confluence of two rivers. The scenery around the city is breathtaking and the city itself is amongst the cleanest that you'll find in SE Asia. Luang Prabang is also the country's spiritual center and you can see several wats of varying size and extravagance nestled in among the European architecture. There's an Alms Giving Ceremony daily along the main street as the Buddhist monks walk through and collect their food for the day. This procession takes place when the sun rises so, needless to say, Eric and I did not get up to witness it during our short stay here.
There's a night market daily along the main road, but it honestly looks pretty similar to any other night market in SE Asia. There's also a food street that serves various grilled meats and fishes, as well as places offering flat-priced bowls that you can fill with whatever you want. The street is super cramped so it can be difficult to find a seat at one of the tables to eat.
Luang Prabang also has a morning market, which we stumbled upon our last morning. This one seems a lot more local and ranged from your standard produce and veggies to live ducks/chickens that get tucked away in plastic bags to-go, complete with an air hole for the beak. We also spotted what looked like porcupine (or hedgehog?) and grilled rat. Yummy!
Luang Prabang is pretty tiny and so we only planned for a couple days here. There isn't too much to see and do within the city, but there are tons of 1-2day or longer jungle treks and other outdoor activities in the vicinity (as advertised by the myriads of companies everywhere in the city). We had one full day and two half-days, so we didn't have enough time to do any of the jungle treks. Instead, we spent a half day just walking around the city. Some of the wats are free and some are paid admission; we didn't go into any since we had seen so many wats in our time in SE Asia already.
The afternoon that we first arrived, we hiked up Mount Phousi to catch the sunset and views of the city. This spot is immensely popular with tourists so the top was completely packed at sunset and extremely difficult to get an unobstructed view. The sunset was very pretty, but I'd probably recommend just going earlier in the afternoon so that you can get the views without the crowds.
There are two paths up to the top, with several temples and Buddhist statues along the way. The most direct and popular route is on Sisavangvong Road (right across the Royal Palace Museum). The other entrance is on Thanon Phousi, which is the one we took as there are some small temples and Buddha statues to view along the way. We had a little trouble finding this entrance initially and ended up walking through a monk compound, but the monks living there were helpful enough and pointed us to the entrance.
If you take the path we took, you'll pass some sites such as Buddha's footprint, a reclining Buddha, and Buddha surrounded by followers, among others. A little ways up from the entrance, you'll hit a ticket boot where you'll need to pay 20,000 kip to continue to the top. The climb up is a lot of steps but the mountain is rather small so it wasn't too strenuous. There's a golden stupa at the very top, as well as the panoramic views of Luang Prabang. After taking in the sights, you can take either path back down. We took the other route down so that we ended up at the night market just in time for dinner.
The top sight to see in Luang Prabang, and the reason why we visited, is Kuang Si Falls. This is a tiered waterfall located about 30km outside of the city and it is absolutely beautiful! I love chasing waterfalls, and Kuang Si is one of the most unique and beautiful falls I've ever seen. The water is a milky aquamarine color and the cascading water is so tranquil, despite all the tourists that will inevitably be there. You can swim in some of the pools at the bottom of the falls, as well as hike up to the top, and it seems like no matter when you go, you'll have company. If you decide to climb up to the top, just be aware that it can be pretty steep and slippery. We went in flip flops during the dry season, so it wasn't muddy slippery but it was dusty slippery coming down. I ended up going barefoot and we were both grabbing on to tree roots to get down - quite an adventure! Without further ado, here are just some of the tons of photos we took from Kuang Si Falls - it's so picturesque, you can't help but snap pictures every other step.
You can get to Kuang Si Falls by tuk tuk, which will cost you about 150-200,000 kip roundtrip. You could also do a shared tuk tuk which will be cheaper, but you potentially might have less time at the falls. Eric and I took a tuk tuk to the falls from Living Land (see separate blog post) and we had 2.5hrs, which was just enough without being rushed. Ideally, you'd want to have 3-4hrs.
Why do you need so long at the falls? The hike up to the falls itself isn't too long, but you'll want to give yourself time to stop and take pictures, and maybe go for a swim if it's hot out (the water is extremely cold!). You also want to have additional time to spend watching the moon bears at the Bear Sanctuary near the entrance of Kuang Si park (included in the entrance fee of 20,000 kip).
The bears were pretty active when we visited, although there were still quite a few napping away in their hammocks. Moon bears (in addition to other species) are hunted illegally for their bile and paws in Asia, and we saw that one of the rescues here had only 3 legs :( You can read more about the moon bear rescue center here.
After visiting Luang Prabang, I would definitely agree that it's up there as one of the most beautiful places in SE Asia. The city is interesting though, in that it doesn't feel authentic despite being so well-preserved. To me, it kind of felt similar to when you visit Williamsburg or Amish country, where the local culture is there and on exhibit but specifically for tourist purposes. It was also interesting to note that, for being such a popular backpacker destination, it was actually more expensive here than any other city in SE Asia, relatively speaking. The lodging options are more expensive (most options are guesthouses with very few hotels available) and the food is higher priced as well. I've read that Luang Prabang is in an economic bubble so it would be interesting to visit some other cities in Laos and see how different they compare. Luang Prabang is a beautiful place to visit but it might not be the most representative of what true Laotian life and culture is like.
Other pictures of food we had in Laos. In general, we didn't find it too exciting as it was very similar to the other cuisines in the area. It's all same same, but different :)
