This town is an odd place. Completely different from anywhere else on our travels so far. It’s absolutely beautiful – a very quiet small town perched on an outcrop of land at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. Louang Phabang is literally in the middle of nowhere, completely surrounded by mountains covered in lush tropical forests, with little fluffy white clouds rolling picturesquely between the peaks. But despite this remoteness the town is literally teeming with westerners! Millions of them! We were surprised by the numbers of tourists in Chiang Mai, but this is something else again. Perhaps it’s the density: a relatively small number of visitors crammed into a tiny town. But the result is just weird – in this distinctly oriental backwater you are far more likely to meet a westerner walking down the street than a local.
I suppose this is because Louang Phabang is considered one of Lao’s most important historical sites. It has the old imperial palace and numerous Wats – but in all honesty these are sweet, modest buildings for the most part, and the we found the real attraction to be the town itself and the surrounding countryside. Louang Phabang has no big buildings – no huge hotels, 24 hour stores, carparks etc – not even a McDonalds or Starbucks!!! Instead you have lovely quaint Oriental-French colonial houses clustered in quiet palm-tree lined streets. It was deemed a protected site by UNESCO in the 1990’s, so modern monstrosities literally can’t be built (legally anyway). As a result, despite the influx of visitors, it remains a quaint, untouched, pretty place. But with lots of nice hotels and stylish shops selling local textiles and handicrafts. A kind of boutique tropical-mountain lost paradise. With millions of westerners everywhere!
To be fair to the visitors here, most are pretty untouristy-tourists. Not the type to follow the flag around with tour guides, bum-bags, giant cameras, and chequered shirts, constantly shouting ‘Wow!’ or ‘Gee!’ at the tops of their voices. The people here are generally the quieter, independent traveller (although a few groups – mostly from the USA – do exist).There are a fair number of families too, although the kids generally look a but bored wandering around Wats with Mum and Dad.
One lovely legacy from the French connection in Laos’s history is that they do bake wonderful bread here. You’ve no idea how good it is to have a fresh crispy baguette after a few months in Asia! The drawback is paying for it. The currency here in Laos is a nightmare. The official currency is the Kip, which is one of these incredibly volatile, silly currencies – to give you an idea £1 is about 17,000 kip. So paying for our bus tickets to the Capital city Vientiane cost over a quarter of a million Kip! As a result the hotels, shops, and even tuk tuk drivers are happy for you to pay in American Dollars or Thai Baht – but prices are stated in kip. So for the last few days we’ve been busy converting between 4 different currencies just to work out how much a can of coke costs! Ah well. I suppose a bit of mental arithmetic is probably good for us in our year out. It wouldn’t be on for us to have a holiday or anything now, would it?
I suppose this is because Louang Phabang is considered one of Lao’s most important historical sites. It has the old imperial palace and numerous Wats – but in all honesty these are sweet, modest buildings for the most part, and the we found the real attraction to be the town itself and the surrounding countryside. Louang Phabang has no big buildings – no huge hotels, 24 hour stores, carparks etc – not even a McDonalds or Starbucks!!! Instead you have lovely quaint Oriental-French colonial houses clustered in quiet palm-tree lined streets. It was deemed a protected site by UNESCO in the 1990’s, so modern monstrosities literally can’t be built (legally anyway). As a result, despite the influx of visitors, it remains a quaint, untouched, pretty place. But with lots of nice hotels and stylish shops selling local textiles and handicrafts. A kind of boutique tropical-mountain lost paradise. With millions of westerners everywhere!
To be fair to the visitors here, most are pretty untouristy-tourists. Not the type to follow the flag around with tour guides, bum-bags, giant cameras, and chequered shirts, constantly shouting ‘Wow!’ or ‘Gee!’ at the tops of their voices. The people here are generally the quieter, independent traveller (although a few groups – mostly from the USA – do exist).There are a fair number of families too, although the kids generally look a but bored wandering around Wats with Mum and Dad.
One lovely legacy from the French connection in Laos’s history is that they do bake wonderful bread here. You’ve no idea how good it is to have a fresh crispy baguette after a few months in Asia! The drawback is paying for it. The currency here in Laos is a nightmare. The official currency is the Kip, which is one of these incredibly volatile, silly currencies – to give you an idea £1 is about 17,000 kip. So paying for our bus tickets to the Capital city Vientiane cost over a quarter of a million Kip! As a result the hotels, shops, and even tuk tuk drivers are happy for you to pay in American Dollars or Thai Baht – but prices are stated in kip. So for the last few days we’ve been busy converting between 4 different currencies just to work out how much a can of coke costs! Ah well. I suppose a bit of mental arithmetic is probably good for us in our year out. It wouldn’t be on for us to have a holiday or anything now, would it?
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